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CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 



CURIOUS BITS OF 
HISTORY 



fBY 

A5^%iS^MACY 
■I 

Author of " Short-Cut Philosophy,''* etc. 




NEW YORK 

THE COSMOPOLITAN PRESS 

1912 



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Copyright, 1912, by 
The Cosmopolitan Press 



©C!.A3:i7:)79 



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TO 

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

IN MEMORY OF 
THE HAPPY LONG AGO 



FOREWORD 

The primary object of these little historical 
sketches, if such they may be called, is entertain- 
ment ; but it is hoped they may also prove 
instructive, in a modest way. And if they should 
lead some to make more extended excursions into 
the inviting fields of history it will be gratifying to 
the author. 

A. W. M. 



CONTENTS 



PAGB 

A Strenuous Lover 13 

The Great Cat Hoax 13 

An Albino King of England 14 

Charles II and His Dog 15 

Shay's Rebellion 16 

A Remarkable Battle 16 

An Uncrowned Hero 17 

A Stubborn Little Kingdom 18 

Upsetting the King 18 

King George's Confession of Defeat 19 

Punishing Animals as Criminals 20 

A Nose Tax 20 

The Sad Fate of a Stingy Bishop 21 

The Father of Cruelty 21 

The Peacock Throne 22 

The First Daily Papers 22 

The Know Nothing Party 23 

A Diabolical Monster 24 

Diocletian and His Baths 24 

Bryant and the Embargo 25 

The Belated Funeral of Brown's Son 26 

A Bishop of Iron Will 27 

How Washington Got Even 28 

A Savage King Who Became Civilized 28 

How A Coward Redeemed Himself 29 

Blackhawk's Solution of the Slavery Question . . 30 

Ducking for Scolding Women 31 

Remarkable Parallel between Napoleon and Well- 
ington 3^ 

How A Beggar Became a General 32 

The First Railroads 33 

Newspapers During the Revolutionary War .... 34 

The Father of the American Revolution .... 34 

Negro Slavery in New England 35 

Paul Revere More than a Midnight Ridee .... 36 

Punishment by the Pillory 37 

Napoleon's Feeble Son 38 

General Scott and the Cholera 38 

The Water-cure Movement 39 

Peculiar Old-time Punishments 40 

Daniel Boone's Last Days 41 

The First Omnibuses 42 

The Discoverer of Bright's Disease 43 

American Independence Born in 1761, Not 1775 . . 44 

Brilliant Indian Military Tactics 45 



8 CONTENTS 

PAGE 

How THE Doctor Cubed Col. Prescott 46 

An Undignified Chief Justice 47 

The State of Franklin 48 

A Rough-and-Ready Monarch 49 

Future Great Men in the Black Hawk War ... 50 

How One Fat Lord Counted as Ten 51 

Napoleon's Second Funeral 51 

A Brotherhood of Fools 32 

A Conscientious Admiral 53 

How Edward I. Got His "Wedding Gifts 54 

The Levelers 54 

The First Steamship to Cross the Ocean 55 

Three Regicides in America 56 

President Jackson's Kitchen Cabinet 57 

A Mad Queen 58 

Fourier's Folly 58 

How the Dutchmen Threw Out the Duke .... 59 

A Lucky Stumble 60 

An Invasion That Did Not Take Place 60 

Riding the Stang 61 

The Battle of the Kegs 62 

A Blanket Procession 63 

The First Political Dark Horse 63 

Wilberforce's Fight on Slavery 64 

The Origin of Pins and Pin Money 65 

Another Strenuous Roosevelt 65 

When Chinese Women Went to War 66 

Three Presidents Who Played Hookey 67 

The Last Battle on British Soil 68 

John Adams a Poor Loser 68 

Joseph the Unfortunate 69 

Pillar Saints 70 

How A Maid Servant Founded a Great Hospital . . 71 

Lord Sandwich and His Great Invention .... 71 

A Seven Days' Fisherman King 73 

How King Henry IV. Fooled the Lawyers .... 73 

The Tragic Fate of Admiral Byng 73 

Queen Dick 74 

Colonel Blood, Crown Stealer 75 

A Petticoat Insurrection 76 

A Strange Will 76 

A Minnesota Regiment at Gettysburg 77 

A Tulip Craze 78 

Lincoln's Answer to Seward 78 

A Much Traveled Goat 79 

Arctic Adventure of the Ship Resolute 80 

Father Mathew's Temperance Work 81 

What It Cost to Discover America 81 

Dr. Franklin Got the Money 82 



CONTENTS 9 

PAGE 

The Dabtmooe Massacre 83 

A Kingdom ik Lake Michigan 84 

The Hunkers and the Barnburners 84 

A Congress on Wheels 85 

Great Earthquake in the Mississippi Valley ... 86 

A King Who Sat on His Throne 400 Years .... 87 

The Kino Held the Stirrup 87 

How Flies Promoted American Independence ... 88 

A City Lost Through Silence 89 

The Wise Women of Weinsberg 89 

The Last Surviving Signer of the Declaration of In- 
dependence 90 

A Young King's Dream 91 

The Old National Road 91 

The First Book Printed in America 92 

An Unfortunate Great Speech 93 

Opposite Opinions of a Book 94 

The Danger of Being Witty 95 

An Influential Old Doctor 95 

Why America Instead of Columbia? 96 

The First White Child Born in America .... 97 

John Henry's Attempt to Disrupt the Union ... 98 

The First Money Coined for America 98 

No Paint for the Puritans 99 

Boston's First Fire 100 

General Washington's Life Guard 100 

Boom Times at the National Capitol 101 

A Parting Shot at Washington 102 

The Earliest American College 103 

Making the Constitution 103 

An Englishman Who Was Loyal to America . . . 104 

The Diggers 105 

America's First Newspaper 106 

A Liberty Martyr of Long Ago 106 

The First English Agitator 107 

When the Crescent Went Down Before the Cross . 108 

A Remarkable Family of Actors 109 

Strange Dying Request of Two Kings 110 

A Great Corsican Patriot 110 

How Kentuckians Fought John Bull Ill 

How Prescott Fought at Bunker Hill 112 

A Terrible Battleship 113 

When Washington Went Wooing 114 

The Crazy Preacher of Kent 114 

A Kaleidoscopic Administration 115 

A Room Full of Gold 116 

The Origin of Yankee Doodle 116 

How Warren Bbaved the British Lion 117 

A Fibe-Fighting Inventor 118 



10 CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Lincoln's First Visit to Chicago 119 

Why Illinoisans Are Called Suckers 120 

Patrick Henry and Slavery 120 

As Wellington Explained Waterloo 121 

Origin of the Sleeping Car 122 

Washington's First Monument 123 

A Manly Speech by George III 123 

Plenty of Beer but No Tobacco 124 

The Old Capitol Building 125 

Unfortunate John Fitch 125 

Crazy European Rulers 126 

Joseph Francis, Life Saver 127 

A Roman Tribute to Lincoln 127 

Some Wild-cat Railroading 128 

Belle Boyd's Thrilling Career 129 

Queer Doings at Baltimore 130 

Our First American Admiral 130 

Children in Coal Mines 131 

The Cradle of Liberty 133 

An Illustrious Arab 133 

How One Ship Fought a Whole Fleet 133 

Dr. Franklin's Polite Sarcasm 134 

A Heroic Spanish Maiden 135 

The First German Railroad 136 

A Napoleonic Colony in Alabama 136 

A Fighting Preacher 137 

The Great Battle of Mauville 138 

A Band of Plucky Explorers 139 

A Naval Victory without Bloodshed 139 

A Valiant Irish Sea Captain 140 

The Finest Tomb in the World 141 

A Dumping Ground for Jail-birds 141 

The Man Behind Columbus 142 

A Hungarian Hero 143 

Lincoln's Journey to Washington 143 

America's First Lawyer 144 

The Land Owner Both Judge and Jury 145 

English Sympathy for America 145 

A Soap Rebellion 146 

Fifth Monarchy Men 147 

A Great Admiral Who Died Poor 148 

Why New York Is Not a Dutch City 148 

Eli Whitney's Troubles 149 

The Czar's Airline Railroad 149 

The First Legislative Assembly in America .... 150 

Troubles in Laying the Atlantic Cable 151 

Postage Rates in 1824 151 

Mary Fisher^s Strange Experiences 152 

Jefferson's Great Unconstitutional Bargain . . . 153 



CONTENTS 11 

PAOB 

The Extremes of Fortttne ...... r • • 154) 

When Washington Was Angry 154 

When Londoners Loved Darkness 155 

The Discoverer of Gold in California 156 

How Russia Got Siberia 156 

William Dockwra and Cheap Postage 157 

Lafayette's Five Years in Prison 158 

A Yankee's Retort 159 

His Face Was His Fortune 159 

An International Pig 160 

Troubles of the Bank of England 161 

A Queer Little English King 161 

Bachelors Ruled Out 163 

General Pike's Tragic Death 163 

Was General Hull a Coward? 164 

Washington a Wealthy Man 164 

Petty Crimes Punishable by Death 165 

Imprisonment for Debt 166 

Napoleon's Opinion of Washington 166 

A Lawyer's Severe Punishment 167 

The Unfortunate Doctor Dodd 167 

The City of Short Bread 168 

How Boston Village Regulated Wages 169 

A Successful Old Schoolmaster 169 

A Surprise for Garibaldi 170 

John Kay and His Flying Shuttle 171 

Where the Spanish Kings Are Buried 171 

The Ragged Schools of England 173 

His Hat Was His Fortune 173 

Jefferson's Mountain of Salt 173 

A Fortunate Accident 174 

Vacillating French Newspapers 175 

The Treadmill as a Punishment 176 

Some Old-Time Fashions 176 

Brother Jonathan 177 

The Rewards of Treason 178 

When Benedict Arnold Was Loyal 178 

The French in the American Revolutioit .... 179 

The Hated Hired Hessians 180 

A Learned King 181 

Our Debt to Spain 181 

A Roman Emperor's Inhumanity 183 

The Origin of Tammany 183 

A City Conquered by Hunger 183 

A Costly Book 184 

A Fleet Captured by Cavalry 184 

The Star Chamber Court 185 

The Bravest Englishman 185 

A Queen Who Died of a Broken Heart 186 



12 CONTENTS 

PAOK 

The Unfortunate Maroons 186 

Cape Good Hope Discovered by Mistake 187 

The Great Expounder of the Constitution .... 188 

Hunting a Short Cut to China 189 

Lincoln's Funeral Train 189 

Slavery in Illinois 190 

The Defense of Gibraltar 191 

None But Brass Buttons Legal 192 

The Discovery of African Diamonds 192 

A Modest Hero 193 

The Indomitable Spirit of William of Orange . . . 194 

Only Giants Wanted 194 

Opening of the Erie Canal 195 

First Consumption of Anthracite Coal 196 

Chicago's First Great Convention 196 

The Capture of St. Joe, Michigan 197 

Making English Citizens of Frenchmen .... 198 

Skedaddlers from New England 199 

The First American Almanac 199 

What America Missed 200 

The Use of a Vice-President 201 

The Author of Hail, Columbia 201 

Censuring the President 202 

The Silver Grays 203 

Living Without Food 203 

Our Navy in 1812 204 

The Parents of Napoleon 204 

A Famine in New England 205 

The Legislative Whip 206 

Origin of Public Bath Houses in England .... 206 

Boston's First Settler 207 

John Falk, Ragged Schoolmaster 208 

Some Lake Cities in 1846 208 

Boom Days in Iowa 209 

Peggy O'Neal and the Cabinet 210 

Two Notable Ancestors 211 

A Satiated Conqueror 211 

An L^nfortunate Marriage 212 

Peter Parley and His Books 213 

Thomas Jefferson as an Inventor 213 

George Catlin, Painter of Indians 214 

The Harmonists 214 

Impeachments by Congress 215 

Andrew Jackson's Ridiculous Performance .... 216 

An Era of Good Feeling 216 

Cabeza de Vaca's Eventful Life S17 

Early Names of Lakes and Rivers 217 

Index 219 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 



A STRENUOUS LOVER 

When William of Normandy was a youth of nine- 
teen he fell violently in love with his cousin Matilda, 
daughter of the Duke of Flanders. The young 
lady, however, did not reciprocate his affection with 
equal ardor, though she seems to have entertained 
a kindly feeling for him. She kept him waiting for 
seven long years, and would not give him a final 
answer. The suspense was very trying to one of 
William's impetuous temperament, and he finally 
decided to bring matters to a crisis. Meeting her 
in the street one day, in company with some of her 
friends, he seized her and threw her in the mud, with 
disastrous results to both her dignity and her fine 
clothes. So humiliated was she, so the story goes, 
that she consented to become his wife without fur- 
ther delay. 

THE GREAT CAT HOAX 

Every generation has its practical jokers. In 
the year 1815, shortly before the departure of Na- 
poleon for St. Helena, some person in the city of 
Chester, England, caused hundreds of handbills to 
be scattered throughout the city, announcing that 
the Island of St. Helena was overrun with rats, and 

that an immense number of cats were wanted to ex- 

13 



14 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

terminate them. Those having cats for sale were 
advised to be on hand with them at a certain place 
on a certain day. Sixteen shillings would be paid 
for each full-grown tomcat, ten shillings for each 
full-grown tabby, and two shillings sixpence for each 
kitten that could feed itself. The result was as- 
tonishing. On the appointed day the city was lit- 
erally crowded with people carrying cats ; men, 
women and children from the surrounding country. 
A riot ensued, and about 1,000 cats were killed. 
The rest got away, and for a long time afterward 
the city and surrounding country were infested with 
cats of all kinds, breeds and descriptions. The per- 
petrator of the hoax wisely kept in the background. 



AN ALBINO KING OF ENGLAND 

It is quite probable that England once had an al- 
bino for a king. Edward the Confessor, who 
reigned from lOJ^S to 1066, is said to have had long 
hair and beard, both as white as snow. His skin 
was of a milky color, and his face inclined to rosi- 
ness. His hands were long and very white. An 
albino always has a skin of a milky hue, with hair 
of the same color, and eyes with deep red pupils and 
pink or blue iris. These peculiarities are said to be 
caused by a deficiency of certain coloring matter in 
the blood. The name albino was first given by the 
Portuguese to negroes they found on the African 
coast who were mottled with white spots. Albinos 
are found, however, among all races of men, and also 
among some of the lower animals, as mice, elephants, 
etc. From the descriptions of King Edward's per- 
sonal appearance that have come down to us, and 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 15 

which are evidently reliable, it is reasonably certain 
that he was an albino. 



CHARLES II AND HIS DOG 

Charles II, King of England, was a great lover 
of dogs, and always kept several of them about him 
as pets. On one occasion he was quite distracted 
by the disappearance of one of his favorites. An 
advertisement prepared by one of his servants was 
posted, but it did not have the desired effect. So 
Charles tried his hand, with this result: 

" We must call upon you again for a Black Dog 
between a Greyhound and a Spaniel, no white about 
him only a streak on his Brest and his Tayel a little 
bobbed. It is His Majesties' own Dog, and doubt- 
less was stoln, for the Dog was not born nor bred in 
England, and would never forsake his Master. 
Whosoever findes him may acquaint any at White- 
hal, for the Dog was beter known at Court than 
those who stole him. Will they never leave robbing 
His Majesty? Must he not keep a Dog? This 
Dog's place though better than some imagine, is the 
only place which nobody offer to beg." 



SHAYS' REBELLION 

One of the most perilous times in the history of 
the United States was the period just after the close 
of the Revolutionary war and before the govern- 
ment had become firmly established. Every com- 
munity was inclined to be a law unto itself. Even 
in puritanical Massachusetts there was a little re- 



16 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

bellion against the state government that looked 
serious for a time. It is known as " Shays' Re- 
bellion," taking its name from one of the leaders, 
Daniel Shays, who had been a gallant officer in the 
War for Independence. The grievances were the 
large salary paid the governor of the state, the aris- 
tocratic character of the state senate, and the bur- 
densome taxes. The rebellion lasted from August, 
1786, till the following February. Shays had a 
large following, and there were several conflicts with 
the state militia. The opposing forces, however, 
evidently did not get dangerously near each other, 
for only three men were killed during the entire 
" war." The leaders were tried and convicted, but 
were eventually pardoned. Shays lived till 1825, 
and in his old age was pensioned for his gallant 
services during the Revolution. 



A REMARKABLE BATTLE 

That was a wonderful battle which was fought 
at Alesia, the ancient capital of Gaul, fifty-two years 
before the birth of Christ. Within the city and de- 
fending it was an army of 80,000 natives of Gaul. 
Surrounding the city and besieging it was a great 
Roman army under Julius Csesar. Encompassing 
this Roman army and harassing it on all sides was 
another army of Gauls, numbering nearly a quarter 
of a million. It was the Gauls' last desperate stand 
in defense of their country. If they lost this city 
they lost everything. Day after day the battle raged. 
The imperial legions of Cassar fought as soldiers do 
who have never been defeated. The Gauls fought 
with a desperation born of despair. But vast nura- 



/ 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 17 

bers and brute force could not prevail against 
Roman discipline. The Gauls finally were routed 
with great slaughter and their stronghold captured. 
This victory was Caesar's greatest military triumph, 
but it was also his greatest shame ; for he dragged 
the captive leader of the Gauls, Vercengetorix, in 
chains to complete his triumph. Vercengetorix was 
a splendid soldier and a knightly man, and all the 
brilliant deeds of Csesar, before or after, cannot erase 
this stain from his record. 



AN UNCROWNED HERO 

About the middle of the eighteenth century there 
appeared upon the streets of London one day a 
gentleman carrying a very strange looking ap- 
paratus. At times he would carry it by his side, and 
again he would spread it out and carry it aloft. 
He was an Englishman and a great traveler, and 
he had brought this curious device from far-off 
Persia. The like of it had never before been seen 
in England, and it excited a great deal of curiosity. 
More than that, it brought much ridicule and abuse 
upon the gentleman's head. Crowds of men and 
boys would follow him, hooting and jeering, and 
even pelting him with stones. But he was not dis- 
mayed, and persisted in his practice day after day. 
Others took it up, and he lived to see his example 
followed by almost the whole populace of London. 
The unromantic name of this uncrowned hero was 
Jonas Hanway, and he was the first Englishman to 
carry an umbrella. 



18 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

A STUBBORN LITTLE KINGDOM 

Amureth II, a fifteenth century sultan of 
Turkey, ruled less than twenty years, yet during 
that time he conquered two empires, twelve king- 
doms, and five hundred cities. But there was one 
little kingdom, lying at his very door, which gave 
him more trouble than all the rest combined. This 
was Albania. For a quarter of a century it suc- 
cessfully resisted and defied Turkish IMohammedan- 
ism. Under the gallant leadership of John Gratiot, 
whom the Turks called Scanderbeg, the Albanians 
repelled twenty invasions by the sultan's army. In 
all more than a million Turkish soldiers were sent 
against the little kingdom from time to time, and 
a very large percentage of them remained to enrich 
the Albanian soil with their bones. At no time 
could Scanderbeg muster more than twenty thou- 
sand men. The stubborn little kingdom was forced 
to yield at last, but not till after Scanderbeg him- 
self had been conquered by death. 



UPSETTING THE KING 

Shortly after Rollo, ancestor of William the 
Conqueror, came down from the north and settled in 
Normandy, Charles III, king of France, also known 
as Charles the Simple, made him a duke and gave 
him his sister in marriage. It then became Rollo's 
duty, as an underlord, to render homage to the 
king; the homage consisting in kissing the king's 
great toe. This obsequious act, not very pleasant 
under favorable circumstances, was peculiarly repug- 
nant to the proud brother-in-law. He therefore 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 19 

delegated the duty to one of his vassals. But the 
vassal was proud also, and did not relish the privilege 
of serving as proxy in a matter of this kind. So, 
when he approached the royal presence, instead of 
stooping down to do the kissing act, he contemptu- 
ously seized the royal foot and raised it to the level 
of his mouth, thereby upsetting the king and land- 
ing him on his imperial back. 



KING GEORGE THIRD'S CONFESSION OF 
DEFEAT 

After the close of the Revolutionary war. King 
George the Third made a speech to his parliament 
in which he endeavored to explain how and why he 
had ended the war, and agreed to a separation of 
the American Colonies from the mother country. 
He closed his speech with these words : 

" In thus admitting their separation from the 
crown of these kingdoms, I have sacrificed every 
consideration of my own, to the wishes and opinion 
of my people. I make it my humble and earnest 
prayer to Almighty God, that Great Britain may 
not feel the evils which might result from so great 
a dismemberment of the Empire; and, that America 
may be free from these calamities, which have for- 
merly proved in the mother country how essential 
monarchy is to the enjoyment of constitutional 
liberty. Religion, language, interest, affections 
ma.y, and I hope will yet prove a bond of permanent 
union between the two countries ; to this end, neither 
attention nor disposition on my part shall be want- 
ing." 



20 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

PUNISHING ANIMALS AS CRIMINALS 

There were some queer doings in the Middle 
Ages. For instance, criminal laws were sometimes 
enforced against offending animals. It is a matter 
of record that in 1266, at Fontenay, near Paris, a 
pig was publicly burned for having devoured a 
child. In 1336 a judge at Falaise condemned a sow 
to be mutilated in her legs and head, and then 
hanged, for having lacerated and killed a child. 
She was executed in the public square, dressed in a 
man's clothing. In 1389 a horse was tried at Dijon 
and condemned to death for having killed a man. 
In 1499 a bull was condemned to death at Canroy 
for killing a boy. In Ireland, in 1383, a cock was 
convicted of having laid an egg which hatched out a 
reptile. 



A NOSE TAX 

In the ninth century, when the Danes were man- 
aging things in Ireland, much to the disgust of the 
natives, they imposed a yearly tax of one ounce 
of gold on each Irish householder, the non-payment 
of which was to be punished by having the nose slit. 
Irishmen have never been noted for wealth, and 
gold is almost as scarce as snakes in the Emerald 
Isle. Consequently the tax was a great burden, 
and the majority of householders were unable to 
pay it. The delinquent tax list soon became some- 
thing formidable, and it seemed as though Ireland 
would soon become a nation of slit-noses. The 
people stood it for thirteen years, and then rose 
in their wrath and massacred many of their op- 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 21 

pressors. The others took the hint and the odious 
law was repealed. 



THE SAD FATE OF A STINGY BISHOP 

Once there was a great famine, so the story runs, 
in the city of Bingen, in Germany. The bishop of 
the city was an avaricious man, and though his 
castle was full of corn and flour, he would not let 
the starving people have any except at exorbitant 
prices. As most of them had no money they could 
not buy. At last the rats and mice of the city, un- 
able to find even a few crumbs to nibble at, rushed to 
the castle in great numbers, and besieging it, cap- 
tured and devoured, not only the corn and flour, but 
also the bishop himself. This is the legend Long- 
fellow refers to in his poem, " The Children's Hour" : 

" They almost devour me with kisses. 
Their arms about me entwine. 

Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen 
In his mouse-tower on the Rhine." 



" THE FATHER OF CRUELTY " 

Hakem L, ruler of Cordova, Spain, in Moorish 
days, did not hesitate to use drastic measures with 
his subjects when they displeased him. At one time, 
when confronted with a rebellion, he promptly sent 
forty thousand of them into exile. To make as- 
surance doubly sure he razed their dwellings to the 
ground, thus leaving them no homes to return to. 
For this act he has become known in history as 
" The Father of Cruelty;" It is recorded that when 



22 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

he died he left a family of forty children; twenty 
boys and twenty girls. 



THE PEACOCK THRONE 

During the seventeenth century there stood In the 
audience room of the citadel of Delhi, India, what 
was probably the most costly and beautiful throne 
of modern times. It was six feet high and four feet 
wide, and was supported by six legs of solid gold, 
encrusted with gems. The body of the throne was 
inlaid with diamonds, emeralds and rubies. Behind 
the throne stood two peacocks, with wings out- 
stretched and blazing with precious stones. On this 
account it was called " the peacock throne." It was 
valued all the way from ten to fifty million pounds ; 
probably no one knew the exact value. In 1739 the 
city of Delhi was captured and sacked by the 
Persians, who rifled the public buildings and temples 
of their treasures and carried them away to their 
own country. Thus the rich throne and its costly 
ornaments fell Into their hands, a prey to the for- 
tunes of war. 



THE FIRST DAILY PAPERS 

The first daily paper Is said to have been pub- 
lished in Frankfort, Germany, In 1615. The first 
daily in Paris was established in 1777. The first 
one in England appeared March 11, 1702, and was 
called The Daily Courant. The publisher was " E. 
Mallet," and it is very Interesting to know that the 
"E." stood for Elizabeth, and that therefore the 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 23 

publisher of the first daily paper in the English 
language was a woman. The paper consisted of a 
single page of two columns, and it contained very 
little except the foreign news. There was no edi- 
torial department, the publisher announcing that 
she " supposed other people to have sense enough 
to make reflections for themselves." The daily 
soon passed into the hands of one Samuel Buckley, 
who appears to have been something of a literary 
man, and who afterward published the Spectator. 
The first daily published in America was The Ameri- 
can Daily Advertiser, published at Philadelphia in 
1784. 



THE KNOW NOTHING PARTY 

The American, or Know Nothing party, was or- 
ganized in 1852 or 1853. It took its name from the 
fact that its members, when questioned, would al- 
ways answer, " I know nothing at all about it." 
It was in fact a great secret organization, with 
" lodges," grips, signs, passwords, etc. Its chief 
aim was to exclude foreigners from participation in 
governmental affairs in this country. In 1856 it 
nominated Millard Fillmore for the presidency, but 
he received only eight electoral votes. The member- 
ship of the party was well distributed over the 
country, north as well as south. For a considerable 
time it grew steadily, and apparently bid fair to 
become one of the great political parties. As the 
slavery question became more and more prominent, 
however, becoming a political factor in spite of all 
efforts to prevent it, the Know Nothing party split 
on it, and went to pieces. Most of the northern 



24j curious bits of history 

members probably joined the Whigs, and eventually 
became Republicans. 



A DIABOLICAL MONSTER 

Among the horrors of the French Revolution the 
diabolical doings of Jean Baptiste Carrier stand out 
with lurid vividness. It is said that his brother revo- 
lutionists, steeped though they were in crime and 
blood, shrank in horror from the extremes to which 
he went in cruelties. Before the revolution he was 
an obscure attorney, but he took such an active part 
that in 1793 he was put in charge of revolutionary 
affairs in the city of Nantes. He organized a sys- 
tem of wholesale drowning. Boats were arranged 
with flat, movable bottoms, and into these were 
crowded priests, women and children. The boats 
were then towed out into the river Loire and scuttled, 
drowning all on board. Twenty-five times this was 
done, the boat often containing 150 or more victims. 
After the revolution Carrier was placed on trial for 
his iniquities. Instead of accepting his fate like a 
man, he pleaded like a coward, claiming that he acted 
under orders from others. But he was found guilty 
and guillotined, which seems an easy fate for such 
a monster. 



DIOCLETIAN AND HIS BATHS 

That the ancient Romans, or some of them at 
least, kept their bodies clean is proved by the ruins 
of very extensive baths found at Rome. The 
Baths of Diocletian, for instance, the ruins of which 
are in evidence to-day, covered an area about one 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 25 

mile in circumference, and there are others. It is 
said that when the Baths of Diocletian were in full 
operation they must have accommodated not less 
than three thousand bathers at a time. With some 
of the emperors bathing seems to have been a sort 
of fad, as they expended vast sums in the erection of 
bath houses and bathing apparatus. Diocletian, 
however, does not depend entirely on the baths for 
his place in history. He became emperor in 284, 
A. D., and abdicated in 305. Two years before his 
abdication he became very active in persecuting 
Christians, so much so that in the annals of martyr- 
dom his reign is alluded to as " the Diocletian Era." 
It is said that the Diocletian baths were built by 
Christians, 40,000 of them being compelled to do 
the work. 



BRYANT AND THE EMBARGO 

During the early years of the nineteenth century 
England was at war with France, and sometimes had 
difficulty in keeping her navy supplied with the right 
kind of men. There were many desertions, and fre- 
quently the deserters would find service on board 
American ships. Whereupon the English fell into 
the habit of overhauling American ships and search- 
ing them for deserters. This the Americans did not 
like, especially when it happened, as it sometimes 
did, that American citizens were impressed into the 
English service. At the instigation of President 
Jefferson congress passed the Embargo act, which 
prohibited American vessels from trading with for- 
eign countries. Thus England could not buy cer- 



26 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

tain much needed American articles, as she had been 
doing. But the Embargo act was very unpopular 
with many Americans, and the feeling on their part 
against President Jefferson was very bitter. Wil- 
liam Cullen Bryant, then a youth of thirteen, wrote 
a lengthy tirade against him, in the course of which 
he said: 

" Go, wretch, resign the presidential chair, 
Disclose thy secret measures, foul or fair; 
Go, search with curious eye for horned frogs, 
Mid the wild wastes of Louisianian bogs ; 
Or, where Ohio rolls her turbid stream. 
Dig for huge bones, thy glory and thy theme, 
Go, scan, philosophist, thy . . . charms 
And sink supinely in her sable arms." 

Bryant was becomingly ashamed of th^'s when he 
grew up, and the poem will not be found among his 
collected works. 



THE BELATED FUNERAL OF JOHN 
BROWN'S SON 

Old John Brown had two sons killed at Harper's 
Ferry, Owen and Watson. The body of Owen was 
buried with others in a trench near the scene of the 
conflict. That of Watson was secured by some 
physicians from a medical college at Winchester, 
twenty miles away. Three years afterward, in 1862, 
Winchester was captured by Gen. Banks of the 
Union army, and Dr. J. J. Johnson, surgeon of the 
Twenty-seventh Indiana volunteers, was placed in 
charge of the medical college, which had been turned 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 27 

into a hospital for southern soldiers. Dr. Johnson 
found the body of Watson Brown, so labeled, which 
had been anatomically preserved as a fine specimen 
of the human body. He sent the body to his home 
in Indiana, and preserved it there for many years. 
In 1882 word reached the Brown family that Dr. 
Johnson had Watson's body. The oldest son, John 
Brown, Jr., who was living at Put-in-Bay, went to 
Martinsville, Ind., where Dr. Johnson lived, identified 
the body, and took it away with him. It was buried 
with impressive ceremonies by the side of the father, 
" John Brown of Osawatomie," in the Adirondack 
mountains. This account is authentic, for the 
writer of " Curious Bits of History " is the one 
who " discovered " the body at Martinsville. A full 
account of the matter will be found in the New York 
Independent of June 20, 1895. 



A BISHOP OF IRON WILL 

We are accustomed to think of Oliver Cromwell 
and the other leaders of the great revolution in Eng- 
land as men of iron will and fierce determination, 
and so they were ; but they did not have a monopoly 
of such traits, by any means. On the other side 
were many men just as stanch and as earnest in 
fighting for what they believed to be right. There 
was Matthew Wren for instance, Bishop of Ely. 
Because of his loyalty to the king and his devotion 
to the church he was thrown into the Tower and re- 
mained there a prisoner for eighteen years. Time 
and again he was off^ered his liberty by Cromwell, 
but refused to accept it, because to do so would be 
to acknowledge Cromwell's authority and accept a 



28 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

favor from him. After his release, on his own terms, 
Charles II. begged him to be quiet and give no 
further trouble. He answered bluntly, " Sir, I know 
the way to the Tower." 



HOW WASHINGTON GOT EVEN 

When George Washington was a young man of 
twenty-two, he had a dispute one day with another 
young gentleman, a Mr. Payne. The argument grew 
very warm, and finally Washington said something 
which gave great offense to Mr. Payne. The latter 
retaliated by knocking him down. According to the 
custom of the times, and the rules of " honor " then 
prevailing, Washington should have challenged his 
antagonist to mortal combat, and thus obtain "sat- 
isfaction." Every one expected him to do this, and 
was greatly surprised if not disappointed that he 
did not. Upon mature reflection he decided that he 
had been the aggressor, and that he ought to ask 
pardon of Mr. Payne. Accordingly he went to him 
the next day and extending his hand said : " To err 
is natural ; to rectify error is honorable. I find I 
was wrong yesterday, and I wish to be right to-day. 
You have had some satisfaction. If you think that 
is sufficient, let us be friends." After such a speech 
as this there was but one thing for Mr. Payne to do. 
They shook hands and were good friends ever after. 



A SAVAGE KING WHO BECAME CIVILIZED 

There is one great character in Hawaiian his- 
tory. King Kamehameha. He was born in 1753, a 
pagan. By his own personal prowess he became the 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 29 

leader of his people. He conquered all the islands 
and was crowned their king. It is a remarkable 
fact that he developed from a savage into a civilized 
ruler. He was vigilant and strict, introducing many 
reforms and doing away with many heathenish prac- 
tices. While he did not become a Christian, he 
abandoned the worship of idols, and on his death 
bed refused to allow the customary human sacrifices 
in the hope of prolonging his life. He died in 1819, 
the year before the arrival of the Christian mission- 
aries from the United States. There is a fine statue 
of him in front of the government building in Hono- 
lulu, and his memory is held in great reverence by 
the native Hawaiians. In the Bishop's Museum, in 
Honolulu, is preserved his war coat, made of the 
yellow feathers of a rare bird of the islands. Nine 
generations are said to have been employed in 
making this coat, and its value is estimated at 
$150,000. 



HOW A COWARD REDEEMED HIMSELF 

Charles Callender was captain of an artillery 
company at the battle of Bunker Hill. There was 
some criticism of his deportment during the battle, 
and he was cashiered for alleged cowardice and dis- 
obedience. He was dismissed " from all further 
service in the Continental army as an officer." But 
he could not have been very cowardly at heart, for 
he determined to wipe out the stain on his record. 
He remained in the army as a private, faithfully per- 
formed his duties as a common soldier, and watched 
for his opportunity. It came at the battle of Long 
Island. The captain and lieutenant of his com- 



30 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

pany were killed. He assumed command and fought 
his guns with great bravery to the last. He was 
about to be bayoneted by a British soldier when an 
English officer, admiring his courage, intervened and 
saved his life. He was taken captive and remained a 
prisoner in the hands of the British for more than 
a year. After his escape and return, Washington 
ordered his former record expunged and restored 
him to his command. At the close of the war he 
was mustered out of service " with the highest honor 
and reputation." 



BLACKHAWK'S SOLUTION OF THE SLAVERY 
QUESTION 

In his old age Blackhawk, the celebrated Indian 
chief, submitted to an interpreter his plan for 
handling the slavery question. At that time, about 
1835 or '36, the question was giving the people of 
the United States a good deal of concern. Black- 
hawk's plan was as follows : 

" Let the free states remove all the male negroes 
within their limits to the slave states ; then let our 
Great Father (meaning the president of the United 
States) buy all the female negroes in the slave 
states between the ages of 12 and 20, and sell them 
to the people of the free states, for a term of years, 
say those under 15 until they are 21, and those of 
and over 15, for five years, and continue to buy 
all the females in the slave states as soon as they 
arrive at the age of 12, and take them to the free 
states and dispose of them in the same way as the 
first, and it will not be long before the country is 
clear of the black-skins, about which I am told they 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 31 

have been talking for a long time, and for which 
they have expended a large amount of money. If 
the free states did not want them all for servants, 
we would take the balance in our nation to help our 
women make corn." 



DUCKING FOR SCOLDING WOMEN 

In other days, especially in European countries, 
unique measures were sometimes adopted for the 
discipline of scolding women. One method was 
ducking, a genuine cold water treatment. A chair 
was fastened to the end of a well sweep overhanging 
the well. The offending woman was placed in the 
chair and securely tied. Then the chair and its 
occupant were lowered into the well sufficiently to 
give the woman a thorough wetting. The process 
was usually repeated twice, three immersions being 
considered necessary to effect a cure. An English 
gentleman writing in 1780 says: 

" In my time, when I was a boy and lived with 
my grandfather near Magdalen College, Cambridge, 
I remember to have seen a woman ducked for scold- 
ing. The chair hung by a pulley, fastened to a 
beam about the middle of the bridge ; and the woman 
having been fastened in the chair, she was let under 
water three times successively, and then taken out. 
The ducking stool was constantly hanging in its 
place, and on the back panel of it was an engraving 
representing devils laying hold of scolds. Some 
time after a new chair was erected in the place of 
the old one, having the same device carved on it, and 
well painted and ornamented." 



82 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

REMARKABLE PARALLEL BETWEEN 
NAPOLEON AND WELLINGTON 

There is a marvelous parallel, or likeness, be- 
tween the lives of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke 
of Wellington. Napoleon was born in Corsica, an 
island near the coast of France ; Wellington was 
born in Ireland, an island near the coast of England. 
Both were born the same year, 1769. Each lost his 
father when he was sixteen years old. The mother 
of each was left with a large family of children, in 
poor circumstances. Each had four brothers and 
three sisters. Both attended military school in 
France at the same time. They became lieutenant- 
colonels within one day of each other. Both were 
good mathematicians, and fond of figures. Both 
are said to have borne a remarkable physical resem- 
blance to Julius Cffsar, and if this is true they must 
have resembled each other. Each became a great 
soldier, and the commander of an immense army. 
But at Waterloo one became the victor and the other 
the vanquished. 



HOW A BEGGAR BECAME A GENERAL 

Once upon a time a Japanese beggar named 
Hideyoshi was sleeping over night upon a bridge. 
Before he arose in the morning he was roughly 
seized and ordered out of the way by an attendant 
of a young nobleman who was passing that way. 
Noticing that the nobleman was a mere lad, much 
younger than himself, the thought occurred to him, 
" Why should I get out of the way ? He is rich and 
I am poor, but that makes no difference. I have 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 33 

heard of the rich becoming poor and the poor be- 
coming rich. Some day I will rise to a higher posi- 
tion than he has, and then I will make him tie my 
shoe." From that moment Hideyoshi became a dif- 
ferent man. He made a way for himself, was ad- 
vanced from time to time, and finally became general- 
in-chief of the Japanese armies. He was an able 
commander, too ; for he suppressed several formida- 
ble rebellions, and conducted two successful invasions 
of Korea. 



THE FIRST RAILROADS 

The first railroad in the United States, in the 
modern sense of the temi, was the Baltimore & Ohio. 
One or two little roads had been built before, but 
they were mere tramways, operated by force of 
gravity or by stationary engines. The Baltimore 
& Ohio was chartered in 1827, and its construction 
begun in 1828, the first rail being laid on July 4« 
of that year. The work did not go forward very 
fast, only thirteen miles being open for traffic in 
1830. After that, however, better progress was 
made, and five years later 135 miles were in opera- 
tion. The first railroad built in England was the 
Stockton & Darlington, twenty-five miles long. It 
was opened for traffic in 1825 ; hence railway trans- 
portation, in the modern meaning of the term, began 
with this railway. Time's Telescope, a sort of year 
book published in London at the time, said: 

" The strides which steam is making in the 
economy of the country are more gigantic and sur- 
prising than those who are domesticated at a dis- 
tance from its immediate operation imagine. The 



34 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

capability of the locomotive engine to travel with 
ease and safety, with a weight of ninety tons in its 
train, at the rate of eight miles an hour, was ex- 
hibited to thousands at the late opening of the Dar- 
lington & Stockton Railway, and is a striking proof 
of the immense progress of this new power." 



NEWSPAPERS DURING THE REVOLU- 
TIONARY WAR 

At the outbreak of the Revolutionary war thirty- 
seven newspapers were being published in the Colonies. 
Most of them were published in Pennsylvania and 
Massachusetts. Of the thirty-seven, twenty-three 
were devoted to the cause of the patriots ; seven, 
possibly eight, favored the English, and the balance 
were supposed to be neutral. Of the twenty-three 
patriotic papers, five went over to the loyalists in 
the course of the war. Thus not quite one-half of 
the total number supported the cause of the Revo- 
lution from start to finish. Most of the editors and 
proprietors whose papers deserted the patriot's 
cause fled across the border into Canada toward the 
close of the war, and forget to come back. 



THE FATHER OF THE AMERICAN REVO- 
LUTION 

There was one man connected with the American 
Revolution whose memory does not receive the at- 
tention it deserves. His name is Samuel Adams. He 
did more to bring on the war than any other man. 
The thirteen colonies were widely separated. There 
was no concerted action, and they often worked at 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 35 

cross-purposes. Adams developed a system of cor- 
respondence among them, which resulted in uniting 
them in opposition to the tyrannies of the mother 
country. For twelve years, from 1764 to 1776, he 
kept up an unceasing agitation. He literally threw 
himself, body and soul, into the work of arousing 
the colonies. He was not a great man perhaps, but 
he did a great work nevertheless. He was not elo- 
quent, but he was persistent. His mission was to 
put others to work, and in this he was wonderfully 
successful. He had a discerning eye for young men 
of ability, and many who became leaders in the 
Revolution were " discovered " and set to work by 
him. He has been called the father of the Revolu- 
tion, and why not.? As one of his biographers says, 
" Massachusetts led the colonies, Boston led Massa- 
chusetts, and Sam Adams led Boston." Bernard, 
the English governor of Massachusetts colony, used 
to say : " Damn that Adams. Every dip of his 
pen stings like a horned snake." 



NEGRO SLAVERY IN NEW ENGLAND 

It seems strange to think of New England as 
slave territory, yet such it was at one period. A 
good authority places the number of negro slaves in 
the New England colonies at the outbreak of the 
Revolution as follows : In New Hampshire, about 
700; in Massachusetts, about 5,000; in Connecti- 
cut, about 6,000; and in Rhode Island, probably 
3,000. But slavery was never popular in that sec- 
tion, and the opposition to it was strong. In 1784 
the Connecticut legislature passed an act that no 



36 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

negro or mulatto child born within that state after 
a certain date should be held in servitude longer than 
until the age of 25. A considerable number of 
New England citizens were vitally interested in the 
slave trade. In Colonial times slaves were fre- 
quently sent out from Boston and other New Eng- 
land seaports to the south. They would buy mo- 
lasses from Jamaica, turn it into rum, trade the rum 
for negroes in Africa, and sell the negroes as slaves 
in Jamaica, taking their pay partly in molasses. 
Thus it was a sort of endless chain, with good profit 
in every link. A Colonial writer, Samuel Hopkins, 
says that in 1770 Rhode Island had about 150 ves- 
sels engaged in slave trade. 



PAUL REVERE MORE THAN A MIDNIGHT 
RIDER 

Every school boy knows about Paul Revere and 
his famous ride, " on the eighteenth of April, 
Seventy-five," but a great many people are not aware 
that he did anything else worthy of mention. He 
was not a great man. He was just a plain citizen, 
but unlike many plain citizens, he was always ready 
to do his public duty. He was full of energy and 
of a fiery temper. He was always in the thick of the 
fight, whatever it might be about, and was usually 
on the right side. By occupation he was an en- 
graver, and he was also an artist of considerable 
ability. Many specimens of his work are preserved. 
In 1768 England's colonial secretary. Lord Hills- 
borough, directed the Massachusetts assembly to 
rescind its circular letter protesting against the 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 37 

stamp act. The assembly refused to do so, by a 
vote of 92 to 17. In the old state house at Boston 
may be seen a large silver punch bowl which Paul 
Revere was commissioned by the Sons of Liberty to 
make for " the immortal 92." Nor were the 17 
" rescinders " neglected, for there may still be seen 
a caricature of them, drawn by Revere. It repre- 
sents them as being driven by devils into the mouth 
of hell. 



PUNISHMENT BY THE PILLORY 

The pillory was used as a means of punishment 
for many hundreds of years in European countries. 
It usually consisted of a wooden frame erected on a 
stool, with holes and moving boards for the admis- 
sion of the head and hands. It was formerly used 
to punish those convicted of practicing frauds or 
shams of any kind. The offender's head and hands 
were inclosed in the frame, which must have been a 
decidedly uncomfortable position, and all who passed 
that way were at liberty to mock and jeer at him 
all they wished. It was a fine opportunity to " get 
even " with one's enemy. Later on the pillory came 
to be used for the punishment of political and re- 
ligious offenders, and much gross injustice was done 
in this way. Sometimes those who were thus made to 
suffer for their opinions gloried in it, looking upon it 
as " persecution for righteousness sake." In cases of 
this kind the friends of the condemned person would 
gather around him and give him their sympathy. 
The pillory was abolished in England by act of 
Parliament, June 30, 1837. 



38 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

NAPOLEON'S FEEBLE SON 

One would suppose that the son of a man like 
Napoleon Bonaparte would inherit at least some of 
the strong qualities of his father, yet such was not 
the case with the Duke of Reichstadt, the only child 
of Napoleon and Marie Louisa. He was born at 
Paris March SO, 1811, and was given the proud 
title, " King of Rome." That Napoleon expected 
great things of him is evidenced by his exultant ex- 
clamation, " Now begins the proudest epoch of my 
reign ! " Four years later the emperor left France 
forever. Marie Louisa took the boy and returned to 
Austria, and the father never saw him again. He 
grew up into a feeble manhood physically, and gave 
no evidence of possessing the genius of his illustrious 
parent. He was made Duke of Reichstadt, and 
entered the Austrian army in early youth. He 
reached the rank of lieutenant colonel, but this was 
probably by reason of birth rather than of merit. 
In 1832 he was seized with " quick consumption," 
and died July 22 of that year. Thus the boy in 
whose birth such great hopes were centered failed 
utterly to fulfill them. To his credit be it said, how- 
ever, that so far as known he was a youth of good 
character, studious and amiable. It is said that 
the deprivation of the society of his boy was the 
heaviest cross the emperor had to bear in his exile. 



GENERAL SCOTT AND THE CHOLERA 

The noble character of General Winfield Scott 
was never illustrated to better advantage than it 
was during the Black Hawk war. Shortly after 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 39 

hostilities began, President Jackson became im- 
patient, and concluded the volunteers were not going 
to be equal to the task of subduing the Indians. So 
he ordered General Scott to take nine companies of 
regulars from Fort Monroe, Virginia, and proceed 
to the seat of war. At Buffalo four steamboats 
were chartered to carry the expedition around the 
lakes to Chicago. All went well till they reached 
Detroit, when two cases of cholera broke out on one 
of the boats. The disease spread rapidly, and at 
Fort Gratiot, north of Detroit, it became necessary 
to land 280 of the men. It is said that of the 280 
only nine survived. Many other cases developed 
as the boats proceeded, and officers and men had a 
dreadful experience. General Scott, always thought- 
ful and forehanded, had taken along a good supply 
of medicines and appliances, and he gave personal 
attention to the sick and dying, attending them with 
every possible care. Of the 850 men who left Fort 
Monroe only about 200 were fit for service when they 
reached the seat of war. Speaking of this ex- 
perience in after years General Scott said : " Senti- 
nels were of no use in warning of the enemy's ap- 
proach. We could not storm his works, nor fortify 
against him, nor cut our way out, nor make terms of 
capitulation. There was no respect for a flag of 
truce, and our men were falling upon all sides from 
an enemy in our very midst." 



THE WATER-CURE MOVEMENT 

In the year 1812 a thirteen-year-old boy named 
Vincent Pricssnitz, living at Grafenberg, Austria, 
sprained his wrist. He wrapped a wet bandage 



40 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

around it, and renewed the application frequently. 
In a short time the wrist was entirely well. There- 
after, when injured in any way, he would use the 
same treatment. By the time he was grown up he 
had become so convinced of the curative powers of 
water that he began to use it in the cure of others. 
At first he treated only the poor, and in a very simple 
way ; but he gradually undertook an extended range 
of cases and increased the modes of application. He 
gave up his occupation of farming and opened a 
water-cure establishment in his native village. His 
fame spread, and patients flocked to him from all 
parts of Europe, and even from other countries. 
It is said that in twenty years no less than 7,500 
persons, from all classes of society, came to Grafen- 
berg for advice and treatment, and that only 39 
of them died while there. Similar establishments 
sprang up in all parts of the civilized world, and the 
proprietors reaped rich harvests. At one time, in 
the '50s, the fad had a great run in this country. 
Priessnitz, however, did not depend entirely on 
water in his treatment. He insisted on the im- 
portance and value of exercise, good food, fresh air 
and mental repose ; from which it appears he was 
in line with some of the best features of modern 
medical practice. 



PECULIAR OLD-TIME PUNISHMENTS 

When New York, or as it was then called. New 
Amsterdam, was under Dutch rule, some peculiar 
penalties were enacted. In 1642 a defendant in an 
action for slander was sentenced " to throw some- 
thing in the box for the poor." In 1644 Thomas 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 41 

Cornel, a soldier, was tried for desertion and sen- 
tenced " to be conveyed to the place of execution, 
and there fastened to a stake, and a ball fired over 
his head, as an example to other evil doers." In 1647 
Jonas Jonassen, a soldier, for robbing hen-roosts 
and killing a pig, was ordered "to ride a wooden 
horse three days, from 2 p. m. to the conclusion of 
the parade, with a 50-pound weight tied to each 
foot." In 1648 an Englishman found guilty of a 
grave offense was pardoned on condition that he 
saw firewood one year for the West India Company. 
In the time of the Commonwealth, in England, 
drunkards at Newcastle-on-Tyne were sentenced to 
carry about a tub, with holes in the sides for the 
arms to pass through. In 1754, in Scotland, David 
Leyes, for striking his father, was compelled to ap- 
pear before the congregation at church, " bair- 
heddit and bairfuttit," with a paper above his head 
inscribed with large letters, " Behold the onnaturall 
son, punished for putting hand on his father, and 
dishonoring God in him." At Salem, Mass., in the 
seventeenth century, John Gatshell was fined ten 
shillings for building a house on the town's ground, 
but half of the fine was to be remitted in case he 
would have his hair cut. 



DANIEL BOONE'S LAST DAYS 

The last days of Daniel Boone were full of trou- 
ble. After all his work in exploring, settling and 
defending the region now known as Kentucky, he was 
not permitted to settle down quietly and spend the 
evening of his tempestuous life in peace. Owing 
to the imperfect land laws of the state the title to 



42 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

the farm he had chosen was declared defective by 
the courts and others got the land. At one time 
he was intrusted with a large sum of money to buy 
land for some friends, and was robbed of the whole. 
Other troubles came upon him and he became dis- 
couraged and disgusted with the ways of civilization. 
He emigrated from the land he had conquered from 
the Indians, and sought a new home beyond the 
Mississippi. He located at a point about forty-five 
miles west of the present site of St. Louis, the coun- 
try now known as Missouri being at that time within 
the Spanish domain. The other settlers there were 
kind to him, and gave him a considerable tract of 
land. When the American government took posses- 
sion of that territory, it generously allowed him to 
keep one-tenth of the land that had been given him 
and was rightfully his. Though past eighty he 
spent most of his time in hunting and trapping, 
and saved up the money he received for pelts. With 
this he went back to his old home in Kentucky and 
settled up some old debts he had left behind him, 
paying each man whatever he demanded. Tradi- 
tion has it that he returned to Missouri with just 
fifty cents in his pocket. He died September 26, 
1820, in his eighty-seventh year. Twenty-five years 
after his ashes were removed to Frankfort, Ky., 
and re-interred with great honors. 



THE FIRST OMNIBUSES 

In 1662 a company of prominent men in Paris 
organized for the purpose of providing cheap trans- 
portation for those who could not afford carriages. 
Pascal, the great writer, was the originator of the 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 43 

scheme and one of the company. King Louis XIV 
issued a royal decree, in accordance with the com- 
pany's desires, authorizing the establishment of a 
line of two-pence half-penny omnibuses, " for the 
benefit," so the decree ran, " of a great number of 
persons ill provided for, as persons then engaged in 
lawsuits, infirm people, and others, who have not the 
means to ride in chaise or carriage." The decree ex- 
pressly provided that the omnibuses should run at 
fixed hours, full or empty, and from certain ex- 
treme quarters of the city. The service was in- 
augurated March 18, 1662, at seven o'clock in the 
morning. Great interest was taken in the matter, 
and it was made a festive occasion. The line was 
started with seven coaches, with seats for eight per- 
sons. Four started from one side of the city and 
three from the opposite side. Each was accom- 
panied by a military escort, and there was much 
rejoicing. For a time the omnibuses were very 
popular. Everybody wanted to ride. The king 
himself tried it. Many people who had coaches of 
their own waited a week before they could get 
tickets for the new conveyances. But the novelty 
soon wore off, the rich rode in their own carriages 
as before, the poor took to walking again, and the 
company went out of business before the end of the 
year. After this failure it was a century and a 
half before another experiment of the kind was tried. 



THE DISCOVERER OF BRIGHT'S DISEASE 

It is not often that a man succeeds in giving his 
name to a disease, as did Dr. Richard Bright. He 
was not a great man, nor a great physician ; yet 



44 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

his career is an illustration of what may be accom- 
plished by persistence and hard work. He was bom 
in Bristol, England, in 1789. After graduating in 
medicine he set up practice in London. He was 
very studious, and made a thorough study of the 
kidneys, collecting and recording an immense amount 
of information relating thereto. He visited many 
hospitals on the continent, alwaj's observing and 
noting. After the battle of Waterloo he assisted in 
caring for the wounded in the hospitals of Brussels. 
He was the first to point out the nature of the dis- 
ease of the kidneys, then little understood, from 
which so many people were dying every year. He 
devoted so much time to the subject, and studied 
the disease so carefully and minutely, that it came 
to be called by his name. His success was due to 
his diligence and to his powers of observation. As 
a brother physician said, " Bright could not the- 
orize, but he could see." 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE BORN IN 1761, 
NOT 1776 

American independence was not bom in 1776, as 
is commonly believed. It came to manhood then, but 
it was born fifteen years before. Not satisfied with 
the ordinary processes of law in dealing with the 
colonists, the English government resorted to " writs 
of assistance," which gave the officers the right to 
enter and ransack any man's house. The writs were 
attacked in the courts, and James Otis, advocate 
general for the crown, was called upon to defend 
them. Rather than do so he resigned his lucrative 
position, and took the other side without pay. 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 45 

When the case came to trial, In February, 1761, the 
lawyer for the crown opened with an elaborate plea 
for the writs. He was followed by Otis's fellow 
counsel, who made a strong argument against them, 
but in moderate terms. Then came Otis, with a 
most wonderful speech. He went beyond the par- 
ticular legal question at issue, and took up the whole 
matter of the constitutional relations between the 
colonies and the mother country. At the bottom lay 
the ultimate question whether Americans were bound 
to obey laws they had no part in making. Otis met 
the question bravely, and answered it flatly in the 
negative. For five hours he held his hearers as in 
a trance, pouring forth a torrent of eloquence that 
overwhelmed the opposition like an avalanche. 
" Otis," said John Adams, " was a flame of fire. He 
hurried all before him. Every man of an immense 
crowded audience appeared to me to go away as I 
did, ready to take up arms against writs of assist- 
ance. Then and there," he adds, " the child Inde- 
pendence was born. In fifteen years he grew to 
manhood and declared himself free." 



BRILLIANT INDIAN IMILITARY TACTICS 

At one time during the Black Hawk war a de- 
tachment of United States troops under the com- 
mand of Lieutenant Jeff'erson Davis, afterward 
president of the Southern Confederacy, while pur- 
suing the Indians came up to them on the bank of 
the Wisconsin river. Here the Indians made a 
stand, and fought with such desperation that they 
held the troops in check. While the fighting was 
going on the squaws tore bark from the trees and 



46 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

made little shallops, in which they floated their 
papooses and other belongings across to an island 
in the river, also swimming over their ponies. As 
soon as this was done half the Indian warriors 
plunged in and swam across, each holding his gun 
above his head with one hand and swimming with 
the other. As soon as they reached the island they 
turned and opened fire on the troops. Under cover 
of this fire the remaining warriors slipped down the 
bank and swam over in the same manner. " This," 
said Mr. Davis many years afterward, " was the 
most brilliant exhibition of military tactics that I 
ever witnessed — a feat of most consummate man- 
agement and bravery, in the face of an enemy of 
greatly superior numbers. I never read of any- 
thing that could be compared with it. Had it been 
performed by white men, it would have been im- 
mortalized as one of the most splendid achievements 
in military history." 



HOW THE DOCTOR CURED COL. PRESCOTT 

Col. Prescott, the hero of Bunker Hill, was a 
man of strong character. Pie had a compelling 
way about him that made him a natural leader of 
men. He also had a temper that could make itself 
felt upon occasion. At one time he was prostrated 
by a desperate fever while in camp, and was at- 
tended by an army surgeon who grossly neglected 
him. He grew worse instead of better each day, 
and chafed sorely under the doctor's neglect. Fi- 
nally, on one of the latter's infrequent visits, Pres- 
cott upbraided him for his negligence, and told him 
plainly what he thought of such conduct. The doc- 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 47 

tor acknowledged his negligence, but frankly and 
brutally told the sick man that he thought it 
proper and best to give most of his time and atten- 
tion to those patients there was some hope of sav- 
ing. This made Prescott so mad that he leaped 
from his bed, seized his sword and made for the 
doctor. The latter did not stay to argue the case, 
but fled precipitately, thereby saving his life. In- 
cidentally, also, he saved the life of his patient, for 
the violent passion and sudden exertion seemed to 
break the fever, and from that hour Col. Prescott 
continued to improve. 



AN UNDIGNIFIED CHIEF JUSTICE 

The Geneva tribunal of Arbitration, which settled 
the controversy between the United States and Eng- 
land concerning the Alabama claims, awarded dam- 
ages to the former in the sum of $15,500,000. But 
the verdict was not unanimous. One of the five ar- 
bitrators, Sir Alexander Cockbum of England, 
submitted a dissenting opinion. For a dozen years 
Sir Alexander had been Lord Chief Justice of Eng- 
land, and one would expect him to be dignified in 
bearing and judicial in temperament. But all 
through the trial he acted more like a petty law- 
yer in a justice court than an arbitrator in a great 
international dispute. He differed from his col- 
leagues on almost every point, great and little, and 
made himself generally disagreeable. In speaking 
of the closing session of the tribunal Caleb Cushing, 
one of the attorneys for the United States, said : 
" The instant the president finished reading the 
award, and before the sound of his last words had 



48 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

died on the ear, Sir Alexander Cockburn snatched 
up his hat and, without participating in the leave- 
takings around him, without a word or sign of 
courteous recognition for any of his colleagues, 
rushed to the door and disappeared, in the manner 
of a criminal escaping from the dock, rather than 
of a judge separating, and that forever, from his 
colleagues on the bench." 



THE STATE OF FRANKLIN 

Many people do not know there was once a State 
of Franklin in the United States. It existed for 
four years, from 1784 to 1788. Many emigrants 
from North Carolina had crossed the mountains and 
settled in what is now known as East Tennessee. 
The territory belonged to North Carolina, but the 
state government had not been able to give it much 
attention. Owing to financial and other troubles 
North Carolina ceded the territory to the general 
government. The inhabitants did not relish the idea 
of thus being cast adrift so unceremoniously, so they 
organized a state and set up a government of their 
own. To their new commonwealth they gave the 
name " Franklin," after the Philadelphia philoso- 
pher. But congress declined to recognize the new 
state, and North Carolina raised strong objections. 
The latter withdrew the cession to the government, 
and undertook to resume control of the territory. 
A long quarrel ensued between the North Carolina 
state government and the citizens of " Franklin." 
The leader of the latte^ was " Governor " Sevier, 
while a Colonel Tipton represented the former. 
There was an immense amount of bickering and much 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 49 

confusion, but very little bloodshed. It finally 

ended in North Carolina resuming control of the 

territory, and " the state of Franklin " was known 
no more. 



A ROUGH-AND-READY MONARCH 

According to the accounts of his contemporaries 
Henry II of England was not very prepossessing in 
appearance. He had a bullet-shaped head, a 
freckled skin and bulging eyes. In dress he was 
very unconventional, and he would not wear gloves. 
In speech he was rough-and-ready, and his manners 
were rude. He never courted popularity, and was 
unscrupulous and revengeful. Moreover, he was of 
a nervous temperament, and was never still. Even 
while hearing mass he would draw pictures to keep 
his restless hands employed. But he had his good 
points. He was strong, persistent, far-seeing and 
hard-working. He was constantly on the move, and 
kept his attendants tired out. So rapidly did he 
travel from place to place overseeing the affairs of 
his kingdom, that his officials never knew when he 
might drop in on them. And he was energetic to 
some purpose. Although his reign was turbulent, 
and although he was almost constantly quarreling 
with his barons and with the church, he was in 
the main just, and brought about many changes for 
the better. He was a great-grandson of William 
the Conqueror, and his greatest work for England 
was the combining together and welding into one 
nation the conquerors and ,the conquered. He sub- 
dued Ireland, and laid the foundation for the future 
great British Empire. 



50 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

FUTURE GREAT MEN IN THE BLACK HAWK 
WAR 

It is remarkable how many men took part In the 
Black Hawk war who afterward became famous. 
The most illustrious name in the list is, of course, 
that of Abraham Lincoln. But there were many 
others whose names and deeds " filled the trump of 
fame " in after years. Zachary Taylor became the 
hero of the Mexican war, and the twelfth president 
of the United States. Winficld Scott became com- 
mander-in-chief of the United States army in 1841, 
and was the candidate of the Whigs for the presi- 
dency in 1852. Jefferson Davis was for some years 
United States senator from Mississippi, and presi- 
dent of the Southern Confederacy during the Civil 
war. Maj. Robert Anderson was in command of 
Fort Sumter when the attack upon it opened the 
Civil War. Albert Sidney Johnston, who fell at the 
battle of Shiloh, is regarded by many as the ablest 
general on the Southern side. W. S. Harney be- 
came a famous Indian fighter and a prominent 
Union general. Edward D. Baker became a noted 
orator and United States senator from Oregon, and 
fell mortally wounded while gallantly leading his 
regiment at Ball's Bluff. Joseph E. Johnston de- 
veloped into one of the greatest of Confederate gen- 
erals. John A. McClernand was a prominent gen- 
eral and aid to Grant. And Gen. George W. 
Jones was elected the first United States senator 
from Iowa, serving from 1848 to 1859. All these, 
in their young manhood, served in the Black Hawk 
war, either as regulars or volunteers. 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 51 

HOW ONE FAT LORD COUNTED AS TEN 

The enactment of the law of habeas corpus marks 
an important epoch in the progress of civil liberty 
in England, and is regarded as one of the great 
achievements of Charles the Second's reign. Charles 
himself did not want the law, but just at the time 
he was very anxious to curry favor with the people, 
and was afraid to oppose so popular a measure. 
The friends and foes of the act were pretty evenly 
divided in parliament, but on the final vote it was 
carried. The manner of its passage, however, was 
both comical and illegal. While the voting was go- 
ing on a very fat lord arose and asked that his vote 
be recorded in the affirmative. In a spirit of fun 
the clerk announced ten votes for him, to accord 
with his great size. They were so recorded, and for 
some unexplained reason the " error " was never 
corrected. The strangest part of it is, the majority 
for the measure was less than ten ; hence it would 
have failed of passage without the fat lord's extra 
votes. This is an instance where a joke was car- 
ried too far to good purpose. 



NAPOLEON'S SECOND FUNERAL 

In his will Napoleon expressed a desire that his 
body might repose " on the banks of the Seine, 
amid the people he had loved so well," but his wish 
was not complied with till twenty years after his 
death. In 1840 the French government requested 
permission of England to remove his body to 
France, and the request was courteously granted. 
Two vessels bearing a special commission sailed for 



52 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

St. Helena in July, arriving there October 8. On 
the 15th the body was taken up and placed in a 
splendid ebony sarcophagus, in which it was carried 
to France. The funeral party arrived at Cour- 
bevoic, a suburb of Paris, on December 14. Next 
day the solemn procession moved to the Hotel des In- 
valides, beneath whose great dome the body was to 
find its final resting place. The magnificent funeral 
car of velvet and gold was twenty feet long and 
nearly fifty feet high, and was drawn by sixteen beau- 
tiful black horses, harnessed four abreast. Follow- 
ing the car were innumerable military and civic or- 
ganizations in whose ranks were many veterans who 
had followed Napoleon to victory. The line of march 
was a continuous procession of flowers and gilded 
statues and triumphal arches. Never before or 
since has the world beheld so magnificent a funeral. 
Though the weather was intensely cold, six hun- 
dred thousand people stood in line that day and paid 
homage to the dead emperor. 



A BROTHERHOOD OF FOOLS 

One would suppose that an organization calling 
itself " The Order of Fools " would be entirely de- 
voted to frivolous things, but such was not the 
case with the society of that name founded by 
Adolphus, Count of Cleves, in 1331. It was formed 
for humane and charitable purposes, and the 
membership was largely composed of noblemen 
and gentlemen of high rank. The insignia 
was the figure of a fool, embroidered in bril- 
liant colors on the left side of the mantle or coat. 
They held a grand conclave at Cleves every year, 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 53 

lasting an entire week. At these annual meetings 
the business of the organization was transacted, and 
plans laid for future work. But business did not 
absorb the entire attention of the members. Be- 
tween sessions they had a general good time. All 
distinctions of rank were laid aside for the time 
being, and perfect equality reigned. The organiza- 
tion was kept up till well on into the sixteenth cen- 
tury, but the original objects were gradually lost 
sight of, and the order became extinct. 



A CONSCIENTIOUS ADMIRAL 

During the Boxer rebellion in China the warships 
of eight allied nations, England, France, Germany, 
Italy, Austria, Russia, Japan and the United States, 
were lying at the mouth of the Pei-Ho river, leading 
to Peking. On the banks of the river, and guarding 
its entrance, were the Taku forts, garrisoned by 
Chinese soldiers. At a critical juncture of the re- 
bellion seven of the admirals united in a demand for 
the evacuation or surrender of the forts, the demand 
being accompanied by a threat to fire on them un- 
less it was immediately complied with. But Rear 
Admiral Kempff, in command of the American squad- 
ron, refused to join in the demand, on the ground 
that he was not authorized to initiate any act of 
war with a nation with which his country was at 
peace. His instructions, he claimed, did not permit 
him to commit an overt act of war. The other com- 
manders argued and insisted, but he steadfastly re- 
fused. It is a part of an admiral's business to fight, 
and it was no doubt a great temptation to join in 



54 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

the bombtardment. Had he yielded, he probably 
would have been sustained by public opinion at home. 
But he had the moral courage to stand by his con- 
ception of his duty under his instructions. 



HOW EDWARD I. GOT HIS WEDDING GIFTS 

When King Edward I. of England was very sick 
he made a solemn vow that if restored to health he 
would undertake another crusade. When he re- 
covered, however, Palestine seemed a long way off, 
and he compromised by driving the Jews out of one 
of his French provinces. Pleased with his success 
in this, he determined to try it on a larger scale, 
and banish the descendants of Abraham from Eng- 
land. So he issued a proclamation commanding all 
persons of Jewish descent to leave the country be- 
fore a certain date, under penalty of death. He 
graciously permitted them to take along a very 
small portion of their worldy goods, and enough 
money to pay their traveling expenses. The rest of 
their property he appropriated to his own use and 
that of his friends. This brutal expulsion of the 
Jews he doubtless considered most timely, for shortly 
afterward his three daughters were married, and he 
was able to give each of them a grand wedding, 
and much jewelry of fabulous value. 



THE LEVELERS 

There are always some who are dissatisfied with 
existing conditions, no matter how favorable they 
may be. Even though such people enjoy a large 
measure of liberty, they want more, and imagine 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 55 

themselves abused If they do not get it. Oliver 
Cromwell was called the Great Commoner, yet at 
one time a considerable portion of his army became 
mutinous because they thought his government was 
too aristocratic. They were called " Levelers," 
because they clamored for a republic based on the 
absolute equality of all citizens. The Protector of 
course put them down with his iron hand. But 
there were " Levelers " before the time of Crom- 
well. In the sixteenth century a formidable party 
with that name arose in Germany. The leaders 
taught that all distinctions of rank are usurpations 
of the rights of humanity. The uprising assumed 
alarming proportions, and an army of forty thou- 
sand " Levelers " set out to put their doctrines into 
practice by ravaging the country. The landgrave 
of Hesse went against this army with his trained 
soldiers, and seven thousand of the " Levelers " were 
slain. 



THE FIRST STEAMSHIP TO CROSS THE 
OCEAN 

The first steamship to cross the Atlantic was 
the " Savannah," built in New York and com- 
manded by Captain Moses Rogers. She was a 
combined sail and steam vessel, " a full-rigged 
ship of about three hundred and fifty tons burden, 
with a low-pressure engine of eighty or ninety 
horse-power." She was a fast sailer, but could make 
eight knots an hour with her engine alone. She 
left Savannah, Georgia (where she was owned). May 
25, 1819, and arrived at Liverpool twenty-two days 
later. When first sighted she was reported as a 



56 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

ship on fire, and a vessel was sent to her relief. As 
she approached the city the shipping, piers, roofs 
of buildings and all other available spaces were 
crowded with excited people, anxious to get a glimpse 
of the wonderful ship. She remained twenty-eight 
days at Liverpool, during which time many people 
from London and elsewhere came to inspect her. 
She then visited Copenhagen, Stockholm, St, Peters- 
burg and other cities, everywhere exciting the won- 
der and admiration of thousands. From St. Peters- 
burg she returned to Copenhagen, and then pro- 
ceeded to Arendal, in Norway. From the last named 
place she returned to Savannah, this time requiring 
twenty-five days for the passage. 



THREE REGICIDES IN AMERICA 

When Charles I. of England was tried " for high 
crimes and misdemeanors," sixty-seven men sat as 
judges. Of these, fifty-eight signed the death war- 
rant. After Charles II. became king, the House 
of Commons ordered that the regicides be brought 
to trial. Twenty-four of them were dead, but they 
were tried just the same, and condemned. Of those 
living, twenty-nine were tried and condemned to 
death, of whom ten were executed. Sixteen escaped 
and went into exile. Of these, three came to America 
and ended their days here. General William GofFe 
and his father-in-law, General Edward Whalley, lay 
in hiding at New Haven for three years. Then they 
went to Hadley, Massachusetts, and probably died 
there. Colonel John Dixwell, another regicide, came 
to New Haven in 1665, and lived there till his death, 
in 1689. Time and again the crown officers searched 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 57 

for these men, but were never able to find them, 
owing to the vigilance of their friends. For many 
years a hermit living near Narragansett was be- 
lieved to be one of the escaped regicides, but it was 
never proven. 



PRESIDENT JACKSON'S KITCHEN CABINET 

When Andrew Jackson was president he had a 
small coterie of men about him, mostly editors and 
office-holders, with whom he frequently consulted in 
private. They usually entered the White House by 
a rear door, in order to keep their visits secret, and 
on this account they were called Jackson's " Kitchen 
Cabinet." Jackson was accused of allowing these 
men to do his thinking for him. He often did things 
with a suddenness that took the country by surprise, 
and it was said that in arriving at decisions he was 
influenced far more by his " Kitchen Cabinet " than 
by his regular cabinet members. The names of his 
" Kitchen Cabinet " were : William B. Lewis, second 
auditor of the treasury; Isaac Hill, second comp- 
troller of the treasury ; Amos Kendall, fourth auditor 
of the treasury ; Duff Green, editor of the " United 
States Telegraph," and Francis P. Blair, Sr., editor 
of the Globe. Not much is known of Lewis. Hill 
was afterward United States senator from New 
Hampshire. Green was a prominent journalist, and 
afterward turned against Jackson and became his 
bitter enemy. Blair came to be a prominent man in 
public affairs. Kendall was the ablest man of them 
all, and afterward became postmaster general. He 
died in 1872. 



58 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

A MAD QUEEN 

One of the most pathetic characters in history is 
Juana, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. Her 
father was king of Aragon and her mother queen of 
Castile. She was the third child and the second 
daughter, but by the deaths of her older brother 
and sister she became heir to the Castile throne. 
She was married to Archduke Philip, son of Emperor 
Maximilian of Austria. In her young womanhood 
she became mentally unbalanced and was known as 
" La Loca," The Mad. Her mother died in 1504, 
and she became queen of Castile, Owing to her men- 
tal incapacity her husband exercised the royal power 
and administered the affairs of the kingdom. He 
died two years later, and she is said to have kept 
watch over his cofRn for many days in the belief that 
he would return to life. Shortly afterward she was 
placed in the castle of Tordesillas, and never knew 
liberty again, though she survived nearly fifty years. 
Notwithstanding her insanity, she takes high rank as 
a mother queen ; for two of her sons became Holy 
Roman emperors. One of them, Charles V., was the 
greatest European ruler of the sixteenth century. 



FOURIER'S FOLLY 

Charles Fourier, a French socialist, believed 
himself to be the originator of a scheme which would 
make all men happy. His social system was to be 
organized on a mathematical basis. By his plan 
humanity was to be divided into groups of four hun- 
dred families, and the groups into series, and the 
series into phalanxes. Each group would be placed 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 59 

under one immense roof, and the members supplied 
with every appliance of industry and art. Each 
individual should choose the occupation for which 
he was best adapted, and then all work would be- 
come pleasure. Salaries would be abolished, and 
each worker be paid enough for his simple wants. 
The surplus should be used for the general good. 
There would be no drones, for each person would 
be anxious to labor for the common good. No 
army would be needed, and no police, for the world 
would become one great family, well behaved and 
happy. Communities for putting these ideas into 
practice were started in various countries. Thirty- 
four of them were founded in the United States, 
and some of them lasted four or five years. It was 
a beautiful dream which did not come true. 



HOW THE DUTCHMEN THREW OUT THE 
DUKE 

In 1582 the Duke of Anjou, son of Henry III. of 
France, was appointed sovereign of The Nether- 
lands, without the knowledge or consent of the people 
he was to govern. They resented the appointment, 
and prepared to resist him. But the wise duke 
thought he knew a thing or two, and resolved to 
make himself master of the situation at one bold 
stroke, by simultaneously seizing the principal cities 
in which French garrisons were located. He him- 
self took charge of the seizure of Antwerp, and on 
the day appointed assembled his troops in the streets 
as if for review. At a given signal they fell on the 
burghers and began to set fire to the houses. But 
the plan did not work. The sturdy Dutchmen did 



60 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

not propose to be deprived of their liberty in this 
way. They put out the fires and furiously attacked 
the soldiers. When it was all over the duke and 
his men found themselves outside the city instead 
of in command of it. 



A LUCKY STUMBLE 

Once upon a time, at a dancing party at Windsor, 
a young Welsh soldier stumbled and fell, landing in 
the lap of a lady who was sitting by and looking on. 
Strange to say, this mishap was the beginning of a 
love affair between the two, which culminated in their 
marriage. The lady was Catherine, widow of Henry 
V. of England. The young soldier's name was Owen 
Tudor. Three children were born to them, the eldest 
of whom, Edmund Tudor, married Margaret Beau- 
fort, daughter of the Duke of Somerset. A son of 
Edmund and Margaret became Henry VII., and, 
beginning with him, and including Henry VIII., Ed- 
ward VI., Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, the line 
of Tudors ruled England for 118 years. It was a 
lucky stumble for the young Welsh soldier, but in 
view of some things the Tudors did to them, it is 
doubtful whether it was lucky for the people of 
England. 



AN INVASION THAT DID NOT TAKE PLACE 

In 1386 the young king of France, Charles VI., 
was persuaded by his uncles, of whom he had a good 
supply, to invade England, and an army of 40,000 
men was assembled in Flanders for the purpose. 
Great preparations were made for the expedition. 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 61 

Every soldier provided himself with a pillard, or 
hired man to go along and collect plunder for him. 
An enormous tent was constructed, which it would 
require seventy-two vessels to transport in sections 
across the channel. Just what this tent was for is 
not quite clear. When all was ready for the grand 
start it was found that the youthful king was drunk. 
When he sobered up he decided to wait for the ar- 
rival of one of his uncles. By the time the uncle 
arrived the king had changed his mind, and con- 
cluded not to make the invasion after all. The 
army disbanded and the stores which had been col- 
lected were plundered. The boats upon which the 
parts of the great tent had been loaded got away 
from their moorings and drifted into the mouth 
of the Thames. The English seized them, and 
found the great tent useful in a variety of ways. 



RIDING THE STANG 

In the north of England it was formerly the cus- 
tom to punish wife-beating, hen-pecking and other 
frailties incident to married life, by a peculiar 
process known as " riding the stang." It was so 
called because the leader was borne on a " stang," 
the north country word for a chair fastened on two 
poles. In southern England the process is called 
" rough music." The offender was called upon by 
a company of men, women and children and treated 
to a loud and boisterous serenade, the instruments 
being cows' horns, fire shovels, tongs, frying pans, 
pot lids used as cymbals, tin pails, and other imple- 
ments and utensils capable of producing loud and 
discordant noises. Along with the din the sere- 



62 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

naders would keep up a constant hooting and yelling, 
and make many jeering remarks to the culprit. If 
one application was not sufficient, the performance 
Would be repeated ; sometimes, in flagrant cases, 
every evening for a week. This form of punishment 
is known to have been meted out to wife-beaters as 
late as 1862, and there is some ground for believing 
that the custom still survives among the lower classes 
in some parts of England. In this country newly 
wedded couples are sometimes treated to a serenade 
somewhat resembling the above ceremony, but it is 
always good-natured and does not carry the idea of 
punishment. We call it " charivari," pronounced 
"shiv-a-ree." 



THE BATTLE OF THE KEGS 

At one time during the War of the Revolution 
some enterprising patriots of Bordentown, N. J., 
fixed up a few torpedoes in the shape of kegs, and 
sent them floating down the river. They were filled 
with gunpowder, and so arranged mechanically that 
rubbing against another object they would explode. 
It was hoped that one of them might come in contact 
with one of the British ships lying at anchor at 
Philadelphia, and blow her up. This hope was not 
realized, but they succeeded in scaring the British 
in and around Philadelphia within an inch of their 
lives. One of the " kegs " rubbed against a block 
of floating ice and exploded, creating wild consterna- 
tion among the British. For twenty-four hours 
thereafter they fired at every object seen moving on 
the bosom of the river. This aff^orded great amuse- 
ment to the Americans, and Judge Francis Hopkins, 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 63 

one of the signers of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, wrote a ballad about the affair, in which he 
poked much fun at the British. The closing stanza 
read thus : 

" Such feats they did perform that day 
Against those wicked kegs, sir, 
That years to come, rf they get home, 

They'll make their boasts and brags, sir." 



A BLANKET PROCESSION 

In 1817 the dissatisfied weavers of Lancashire, 
England, got together and resolved to march up 
to London and lay their grievances before the prince 
regent. As it was quite a way to London, each took 
a blanket along to wrap about him at night. About 
5,000 made the start, and a curious looking parade 
it must have been. One eyewitness described the 
marchers as " a most deplorable lot, without food 
and without organization." Scarcely had they be- 
gun to move when they were attacked by the mili- 
tary and partially dispersed. Some kept on, but the 
desertions became more and more frequent. By the 
time the marching column reached the outskirts of 
London it had dwindled to six persons, and not one 
reached the presence of the prince regent. 



THE FIRST POLITICAL DARK HORSE 

The first " dark horse " appeared in an Ameri- 
can political convention in 1844. His name was 
James K. Polk. In the national Democratic con- 
vention of that year Van Buren, who had been presi- 



64 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

dent but was defeated by Harrison in 1840, was the 
leading candidate, with a majority of twenty-six 
in the convention. But the two-thirds rule held 
good, and that blasted Van Buren's chances. Seven 
ballots were taken with no result except an increase 
of bad feeling among the delegates. James K. Polk 
had been modestly mentioned for vice-president, but 
nobody had thought of him as a candidate for the 
chief place. On the eighth ballot a delegate from 
Pennsylvania broke away from Buchanan and voted 
for Polk. The Maryland delegation joined him, 
and a flood of oratory broke loose. On that ballot 
Polk received forty-four votes. On the ninth the 
break became a stampede, and every vote was recorded 
for Polk. 



WILBERFORCE'S FIGHT ON SLAVERY 

A GOOD example of what may be accomplished 
through the persistent efforts of one man or set of 
men is illustrated in the life of William Wilberforce. 
When a mere boy at school he became interested in 
the slavery question, and wrote an article for the 
local paper condemning the " iniquitous institu- 
tion," and throughout a long life he never lost sight 
of the subject. England passed an act abolishing 
slavery on home soil in 1807, but it was the object of 
Wilberforce's life to have it abolished in all English 
colonies. He labored incessantly, making speeches 
and writing articles looking to that end. Three days 
before his death, which occurred July 29, 1833, 
word was brought to him that a bill abolishing 
slavery in the colonies had passed to its second read- 
ing. Nine days after his death the bill was passed. 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 65 

Under its provisions 800,000 slaves in the various 
colonies were set free, the owners receiving £20,000,- 
000 as compensation. 



THE ORIGIN OF PINS AND PIN MONEY 

For a long time after pins were invented, in the 
fourteenth century, they were used only by the 
wealthy. It cost so much to manufacture them that 
the poor and even the middle classes could not af- 
ford them. Each pin was made by filing one end of 
a wire of the proper length to a point, and then 
twisting a piece of finer wire about the other end. 
The complete process is said to have involved about 
thirteen different operations, requiring as many 
different persons. In 1797 Timothy Harris of 
England succeeded in making the first solid-headed 
pin. In 1824 an American named Wright made a 
great improvement over Harris's method, and in 
1831 John I. Howe of New York city invented a 
machine for making pins as we now have them. 
At one period, when pins were expensive luxuries, 
it was customary to give a young lady a certain 
amount on her marriage for " pin money." The 
custom disappeared long ago, but the term " pin 
money " remains. 



ANOTHER STRENUOUS ROOSEVELT 

Other Roosevelts besides Theodore have been 
noted for strenuousness. Nicholas J. Roosevelt was 
one of them. He flourished in the early years of the 
nineteenth century, and may be called the father 
of steam navigation in the west. In 1811 he made a 



66 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

voyage on a flatboat from Pittsburg to New Orleans, 
to ascertain whether steam could be used as a mo- 
tive power on the Ohio and Mississippi. Everybody 
discouraged the idea, but on his return, with the 
aid of Fulton and Stevenson, he built a steamboat 
to try it out. The boat was called the New 
Orleans, and cost about $38,000. With his wife 
and a small crew he embarked at Pittsburg amid the 
plaudits of thousands. People said it was all right 
going down, but the boat could never be made to 
go up the river. At Cincinnati he took some people 
aboard for a little ride, and scared them nearly to 
death by letting the boat drift toward the Falls 
of the Ohio. Suddenly reversing the engine, he took 
the boat up stream three or four miles, to their 
great relief and delight. The voyage was a great 
success, and the forerunner of many more. 



WHEN CHINESE WOMEN WENT TO WAR 

About 1850 a Chinaman at Nanking named 
Hungsewtsiuen founded a society which he called 
" God-Worshipers," in opposition to Confucianism, 
the state religion. It soon came into collision with 
the imperial authorities, and the uprising became 
known as the Taiping rebellion. The most peculiar 
thing about it was, the women were as active as the 
men in the military operations. It is said that a 
large army of women was raised and formed into 
brigades of 13,000 women each, with female officers. 
Of each brigade 10,000 were picked women and 
drilled in garrison duty. The rest were compelled 
to do the drudgery, as building breastworks, digging 
trenches, erecting batteries, etc. The rebels held 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 67 

the city of Nanking till 1864, with Hungsewtsiuen, 
called " the Heavenly King," as ruler. The re- 
bellion was finally suppressed by the imperial au- 
thorities, and it had a tragic ending. The " Heav- 
enly King " perished by his own hands amid the 
blazing ruins of the palace he had occupied for eleven 
years. 

THREE PRESIDENTS WHO PLAYED 
HOOKEY 

Three presidents failed to attend the inaugural 
ceremonies of their successors. Both the Adamses 
have this distinction, and likewise Andrew Johnson. 
John Adams was greatly disappointed at his failure 
to secure a second term, and felt very bitter toward 
his successful rival, Thomas Jefferson. On the last 
day of his administration he worked till midnight 
filling offices and signing commissions, and then 
slipped out of Washington in the early morning 
hours of the day that was to see Jefferson installed 
in his place. His grandson, John Quincy Adams, 
had a better excuse for not attending the inaugura- 
tion of his successor, Andrew Jackson. Party spirit 
ran high in those days, and there was no love be- 
tween the two. It is said, however, that Jackson 
came to Washington with the full intention of calling 
on Adams and of being friendly, but was dissuaded 
from doing so by his party associates. Of course 
this made it out of the question for Adams to at- 
tend the inaugural. Andrew Johnson had quar- 
reled with the man who was to succeed him. General 
Grant, as he had with almost every one else, and 
neither had any use for the other. Johnson proba- 



68 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

bly would have been willing to attend Grant's in- 
augural, but Grant peremptorily refused to ride 
in the same carriage with him. 



THE LAST BATTLE ON BRITISH SOIL 

No battle has been fought on British soil, that 
is, in Great Britain proper, for considerably more 
than a century and a half. The last one was at 
Culloden Moor, four miles from Inverness, in Scot- 
land. Charles Edward Stuart, grandson of James 
II. of England, known in history as the " Young 
Pretender," came over from France and attempted 
to regain the throne of his ancestors. His army was 
badly defeated at the above named place on April 
27, 1746. It was an unequal contest, for the Duke 
of Cumberland had 12,000 royal troops, while 
Charles Edward's Highlanders numbered only 5,000. 
In this battle all the wounded in Charles Edward's 
army were put to death, and for some time after- 
ward the prisons of England bulged with Scottish 
prisoners of war. Many of the prisoners were 
afterward executed. This was the last attempt of 
the Stuart family to regain the throne of England, 
though Charles Edward survived the battle of Cul- 
loden 42 years. 



JOHN ADAMS A POOR LOSER 

John Adams, second president of the United 
States, was not a good loser. He wanted another 
term, and worked hard for it. None of the candi- 
dates received a majority of the electoral votes, and 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 69 

the election was thrown into the house of representa- 
tives. But Adams had no chance there, for he was 
third in the race, and only the two having the highest 
number of electoral votes could be voted for. Thus 
the choice lay between Jefferson and Burr, and Jef- 
ferson won. Adams was very much disgruntled, 
and did everything in his power to make things un- 
pleasant for his successor. He filled every vacant 
office he could lay his hands on, so as to leave as 
little patronage as possible for Jefferson. Not only 
so, but in the closing hours of his administration he 
and his party associates created twenty-three new 
judgeships, for which there was no necessity, and 
worked till the stroke of midnight on March 3, filling 
out and signing commissions for these " midnight 
judges," as they were called. 



JOSEPH THE UNFORTUNATE 

Joseph II., emperor of Germany, was not a very 
successful ruler. Half in jest, half in earnest, he 
suggested this as an appropriate inscription for his 
tombstone: " Here lies Joseph, unfortunate in all his 
undertakings." He was a good man, with excellent 
intentions ; but somehow his plans almost invariably 
went wrong. " Be good and you will be happy " did 
not seem to apply in his case. The truth is, he was 
lacking in judgment. He was a zealous reformer, 
and deeply concerned for the welfare of his subjects; 
but he went about it in the wrong way. He tried 
to reform people with a hammer, and totally disre- 
garded their feelings in the matter. Many of them 
did not even know they needed reforming. Joseph 
had about as much tact as a runaway horse in a 



70 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

flower garden. He probably did not know it, but 
this lack of judgment was largely the cause of his 
being " unfortunate in all his undertakings." 



PILLAR SAINTS 

It is marvelous what strange things men have 
done in the name of religion, but none are more 
curious than the practices of the Stylites, sometimes 
called Air Martyrs, but usually known as Pillar 
Saints. The founder of the sect, and its most con- 
spicuous example, was a shepherd of Cilicia named 
Simeon, now known in church history as St. Simeon 
Stylites. With the idea of gaining the favor of 
heaven and attaining saintship on earth he took up 
his residence on a pillar, or column, said to have 
been sixty feet high. The top of this pillar was 
about three feet in diameter, and was inclosed by 
an iron railing. It seems incredible, but he is said 
to have lived here for thirty years, never descending, 
eating very sparingly of food sent up to him, always 
standing or bowing in prayer, and exposed to all 
kinds of weather. He wore the skins of animals, 
and always kept an iron band about his neck. 
At a certain hour every day he addressed those gath- 
ered at the foot of the pillar, exhorting them to lives 
of holiness. He died on top of his pillar, and his 
body was taken to Antioch and buried with imposing 
ceremonies. The practice of this extreme form of 
Christian asceticism was taken up by others, and 
" Pillar Saints " became quite numerous in eastern 
countries. The sect did not entirely disappear till 
the twelfth century. 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 71 

HOW A MAID SERVANT FOUNDED A GREAT 
HOSPITAL 

Guy's Hospital, in London, is one of the largest 
institutions of its kind in the world. It was founded 
by Thomas Guy in 1721, "and thereby hangs a 
tale." Guy was rich and miserly, and in middle age 
he became engaged to marry one of his maid serv- 
ants. Preparatory to the wedding he gave orders 
for the pavement in front of his house to be mended 
as far as a particular stone, which he marked. In 
his absence the maid to whom he was engaged was 
watching the workmen, and noticing a broken place 
they had not repaired she called their attention to it. 
They replied that ]Mr. Guy had told them to repair 
only so far. " Well," said she, " you mend it, and 
tell him I told you to. I am sure he will not be 
angry." But he was, so angry that he broke the 
engagement, renounced the idea of matrimony alto- 
gether, and resolved to spend his fortune in building 
a great hospital, which he did. 



LORD SANDWICH AND HIS GREAT 
INVENTION 

John Montagu is known in history as the fourth 
Earl of Sandwich. Americans owe his memory a debt 
of gratitude because as First Lord of the Admiralty 
he contributed materially to the success of the 
American cause by his poor management of the 
English navy. But he is also entitled to fame on 
other and entirely different grounds. He was an 
inveterate gambler and spent most of his time 
in a gambling house near the Admiralty offices. 



n CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

Frequently he would become so fascinated with the 
play that he would forget to eat or drink for twenty- 
four hours at a time. Then he would hastily sum- 
mon an attendant and order him to bring him any- 
thing that could be had to eat. Uusually it would 
be a slice of beef and two slices of bread. Placing 
the beef between the two pieces of bread he would 
devour them with great relish. He was so fond of 
this hasty luncheon, and praised it so highly, that 
it came to be called after his name, or rather after 
his title. To this day " sandwiches " continue to 
be an important feature of lunch counters. 



A SEVEN DAYS' FISHERMAN KING 

In 1647, when the kingdom of Naples was under 
the grinding rule of Spain, a fisherman of Sor- 
rento was stung to madness by the indignities of- 
fered his wife by Spanish officials, because she had 
attempted to smuggle a few handfuls of flour. So 
furious was he that he tore down an edict that had 
just been posted by the authorities. The whole 
population, including women and children, rallied 
around him. Forty years of Spanish oppression had 
made them frantic. They terrified the viceroy, 
resisted the soldiers successfully, and killed many of 
the Spanish residents. They secured a revocation 
of many obnoxious edicts, the abolishment of op- 
pressive taxes, and full pardon for all who engaged 
in the insurrection. The fisherman, whose name was 
Masaniclo, was the leader in all this, and became the 
idol of the people. He ruled Naples for seven 
days, but his success seems to have turned his head. 
He became dictatorial and oppressive, and was put 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 73 

to death by the populace. Hence he is called the 
Seven Days' King. 



HOW KING HENRY IV. FOOLED THE 
LAWYERS 

The sixth parliament of Henry IV. of England 
met at Coventry in 1404. It was called the Un- 
learned Parliament by some, and the Illiterate 
Parliament by others ; while by others still it was 
disrespectfully dubbed the Parliament of Dunces. 
The reason for this was that it contained no lawyers. 
There had been much complaint that lawyers were 
in the habit of securing seats in parliament, not for 
the public good, but to further the interests of their 
clients and incidentally feather their own nests. 
Henry himself said that members often spent more 
time on private suits than on public business. 
Availing himself of an ordinance passed under Ed- 
ward III., he stipulated in the writs that no lawyers 
should be returned. He had the parliament meet in 
Coventry, so as not to be near the courts. Not- 
withstanding it contained no lawyers, and although 
it was called by derisive names as noted, it seems 
to have been as good as the average, and to have 
done some sensible things. Strange to say, though 
obsolete long ago, the ordinance excluding lawyers 
was not repealed till 1871. 



THE TRAGIC FATE OF ADMIRAL BYNG 

Admiral, John Byng of the British navy bungled 
a battle and was shot for it. In 1756 he was sent 
with his squadron to protect a British station on 



74 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

the island of Minorca, in the Mediterranean. He 
came to an engagement with the French fleet, but 
managed his vessels very poorly, and the French 
were victorious. When news of the defeat reached 
England there was a great outcry. The admiral 
was brought home and tried by court-martial. The 
court found him guilty of not having done his ut- 
most to win the battle, but acquitted him of cow- 
ardice and disaff'ection and recommended him to 
mercy on that account. But there was a stringent 
law at that time which prescribed death for negli- 
gence on the part of an admiral, and the king de- 
cided not to interfere with the verdict. Byng, how- 
ever, was not without friends and defenders. Many 
people believed the government itself was at fault 
in not furnishing him with an adequate equipment 
of men and ships, and made him a scape-goat for 
its own shortcomings. His trial and execution 
made a deep impression on the public mind, and 
doubtless led to a modification of the law. The ad- 
miral met his death bravely, but it was needless 
cruelty to shoot him on a ship he had formerly 
commanded. 



QUEEN DICK 

Oliver Cromwell was a strong character, but the 
same cannot be said of his son, Richard. Oliver 
tried to train his son to be a worthy successor as 
Protector, but the attempt was a failure. Richard 
was easy-going and amiable, and more addicted to 
sports than to statecraft. He was the acknowl- 
edged Lord Protector from September 3, 1658, to 
May 25, 1659, but cut little figure as such. He 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 75 

did not relish official duties, and much preferred hav- 
ing a good time. The Cavaliers called him " Queen 
Dick," and others, still less respectfully, spoke of 
him as " Tumble-down Dick." He was glad to quit 
when parliament told him to get out. After his 
abdication, however, he conducted himself with credit 
and even with dignity. He lived in quiet retire- 
ment for fifty-three years, and died July 12, 1712, 
at the ripe old age of ninety. 



COLONEL BLOOD, CROWN STEALER 

One day in 1670 a country clergyman, his wife 
and a nephew visited the Tower of London and were 
shown the usual sights by the keeper. While view- 
ing the ro3^al regalia the lady fell suddenly ill, and 
was taken to the keeper's living room, where she 
quickly recovered under the kindly ministrations of 
the keeper's wife and daughter. This was the be- 
ginning of an intimate friendship between the two 
families, and of a love affair between the nephew 
and the keeper's daughter. Some time after- 
ward the clergyman, the nephew and a third man 
went to the Tower to complete arrangements for 
the wedding. The third man had never seen the 
royal regalia, so the keeper took the party to see 
it. As he was lifting it out of the chest he was 
seized and gagged by two of the men, while the 
third made off with the crown. The alarm was 
given, and the thieves were captured and the crown 
recovered just outside the gate. The " clergyman " 
proved to be Col. Thomas Blood, a noted outlaw, 
and the others his accomplices. It was never pub- 
licly known what Blood intended to do with the 



76 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

crown, or why King Charles granted full pardon 
to all engaged in the robbery. 



A PETTICOAT INSURRECTION 

Mobile, Ala., was founded very early in the 
eighteenth century. At that time almost the whole 
southern part of what is now the United States was 
under French dominion. The colony had many ups 
and downs, and a full quota of the experiences inci- 
dent to pioneer life. At one time a ship brought 
over from the mother country, along with a supply 
of food and merchandise, " 23 good and virtuous 
maidens, under charge of two gray nuns." It is 
recorded that all these maidens were well married 
to worthy gentlemen settlers within a month after 
their arrival — all but one, who could not find a 
man to suit her. Later on the food became scarce, 
and these wives rose in rebellion, and demanded that 
they should be given something better to eat than 
common Indian corn or meal. They must have 
pushed their demands vigorously, for it is said the 
rebellion greatly taxed the patience and ingenuity 
of the governor, Bienville. The episode is known in 
local annals as the Petticoat insurrection. 



A STRANGE WILL 

Peter Thelussen, a London merchant, died in 
1797, leaving a fortune of £700,000. By his 
will £100,000 went to his wife and children. 
The rest of his fortune was committed to trustees, 
with the stipulation that it should be allowed 
to accumulate during the lives of the sons and 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 77 

grandsons. When they were all dead, the for- 
tune was to go to the oldest living great grandson ; 
or if there should be no great grandson, it should 
go to the government and be applied on the national 
debt. The will was contested, but the heirs were 
unable to break it. The last grandson died in 1859, 
and the fortune was delivered to Charles Thclussen, 
the oldest living great grandson. At the time the 
will was made experts figured out that the for- 
tune would amount to something like £1,900,000 
by the time it should be turned over to the great 
grandson, but the expenses of litigation and ad- 
ministration had been so great that he re- 
ceived only about the amount of the original for- 
tune, £700,000. 



A MINNESOTA REGIMENT AT 
GETTYSBURG 

At a critical juncture during the battle of Gettys- 
burg, when the Confederates were pressing hard at 
a certain point. General Hancock rode up to a body 
of soldiers and inquired "What regiment is this?" 
" The First Minnesota," was the response. " Charge 
that line," commanded Hancock. Not all the regi- 
ment was there, only eight companies, 262 men ; 
while the foe against whom they were to hurl them- 
selves were many times that number. But it was 
theirs not to make reply or reason why, and not 
for one moment did they think Hancock had blun- 
dered. Into that gate of death they plunged, while 
artillery and musketry raked them with shot and 
shell. Straight to the mark they went, and they 
accomplished what they were sent to do : they 



78 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

checked the enemy's advance and held the ground 
till reinforcements came up. But at the end of 
that awful fifteen minutes fifty of the 262 lay dead, 
one hundred and seventy-five were wounded, and 
thirty-seven held the line of battle. 



A TULIP CRAZE 

The world saw something new under the sun in 
the seventeenth century, in the way of a tulip craze. 
It began in Holland, and spread all over Europe. 
There was a marvelous demand for the bulbs, and 
intense rivalry in producing new varieties. Rare 
ones sold at fabulous prices. One man is said to 
have paid $5,200 for a single bulb. Sometimes the 
ownership of a bulb was divided into shares. People 
simply went wild on the subject of tulips. Bulbs 
were often bargained for before they came into ex- 
istence, and many were sold that never did exist. 
Men gambled in tulips somewhat as they now specu- 
late in wheat. Whole fortunes were invested in the 
plants, and many wealthy families were financially 
ruined by the craze. The city of Haarlem is still 
the principal center of production of tulip bulbs 
for the European and American markets, but the 
speculative mania has never been repeated. 



LINCOLN'S ANSWER TO SEWARD 

WiL"LiAM H. Seward and his friends were sorely 
disappointed at his failure to secure the nomination 
for the presidency in 1860. Lincoln displayed both 
sagacity and magnanimity when he gave his de- 
feated rival the most important place in his cabinet. 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 79 

At the time Lincoln was largely an unknown quan- 
tity, while Seward was a man of much experience 
in public affairs. Seward's friends confidently ex- 
pected him to be the strong man of the cabinet, and 
even to overshadow the executive. Shortly after 
entering upon his duties he handed Lincoln a note 
containing " Some Thoughts for the President's 
Consideration." Among other things he suggested 
the necessity that some one man should take the 
lead and grapple boldly with the situation, closing 
with these words : " Either the president must do 
it himself, or devolve it upon some member of the 
cabinet. . . . It is not my special province, but 
I neither seek to evade or assume responsibility." 
Lincoln ansAvercd the note the same day. On the 
question of leadership he simply said, " If this must 
be done, I must do it." The matter was dropped 
then and there, and with fine discretion Lincoln 
kept the correspondence secret. 

A MUCH TRAVELED GOAT 

About the year 1772 there died at Mile End, 
England, a well informed goat, if traveling and 
seeing the world would make it so. It twice cir- 
cumnavigated the globe ; first in the discovery ship 
Dolphin, with Captain Wallis, and afterward in the 
ship Endeavorer, commanded by the celebrated Cap- 
tain Cook. The Dolphin sailed from England 
August 22', 1766, and returned May 20, 1768. It 
visited many lands, including numerous islands of 
the Pacific, on this voyage. The goat did not re- 
main ashore very long, for the Endeaiforer sailed 
from Plymouth August 25, 1768. The vessel 



80 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

touched at Maderia, doubled Cape Horn, spent six 
months along the coast of New Zealand, and visited 
many other strange countries. It got back to Eng- 
land June 12, 1771. In the three years Cook lost 
thirty of his eighty-five men, but the goat returned 
in apparent good health. Arrangements were made 
to admit her to the privileges of one of the govern- 
ment homes for sailors, but she did not live to enjoy 
them. She wore a silver collar, with a Latin in- 
scription prepared by Dr. Samuel Johnson. 



ARCTIC ADVENTURE OF THE SHIP 
RESOLUTE 

In 1845 Sir John Franklin went in search of a 
northwest passage, with two ships and 168 men. 
All were lost in the frozen regions of the north. 
Many expeditions were sent in search of the lost 
explorers. In 1852 Sir Edward Belcher conducted 
such an expedition, with five ships under his com- 
mand. All five of the vessels became ice-bound, and 
were finally abandoned. In 1855 the captain of an 
American whaling vessel sighted a strange looking 
ship in Davis Strait. No signals were put out or 
answered, and no crew was visible. The strange 
craft was boarded, and was found to be the Reso- 
lute, one of the five ships that had been abandoned 
by Sir Edward and his crew. In some way it had 
escaped its icy bonds, and had drifted southward 
more than a thousand miles in the 474* days be- 
tween its abandonment and its discovery. Some 
things on board had been damaged by water, other- 
wise the ship was in fairly good condition. By a 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 81 

resolution of congress $40,000 was spent in putting 
the vessel in first-class shape, and it was then re- 
turned to the British government with the compli- 
ments of the American people. 



FATHER MATHEWS TEMPERANCE WORK 

One hundred and fifty thousand converts to so- 
briety within a few months in one city is a good 
record. That is the result credited to the work of 
Father Mathew in the city of Cork about the year 
1838. From Cork the movement spread all over 
Ireland, and even some parts of England felt its 
influence. Perhaps never before or since has a 
temperance movement assumed such proportions or 
been followed by such great results. The work done 
by Father Mathew involved great personal sacrifice, 
for his family owned a large distillery, from which 
he had been accustomed to receive large dividends 
each year. The crusade of which he was the head 
caused such a falling off in the drinking of the 
working classes that the distillery had to close. 
Father Mathew spent some time in the United States 
in 1850, and founded numerous total abstinence so- 
cieties. 



WHAT IT COST TO DISCOVER MIERICA 

It is difficult to make an accurate estimate of 
what it cost to discover America. All the docu- 
ments agree that the total expense of fitting out the 
three little vessels with which Columbus sailed was 
1,140,000 maravedis, but the difl^culty is to ascertain 
the value of that "coin at the time. A maravedi is 



82 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

a small copper coin of Spain, supposed to be worth 
about three mills of American money. The coins 
of a country usually decrease in value as the coun- 
try grows older, and some authorities claim that in 
the time of Columbus a maravedi was equal to seven 
mills. If such was the case, the expense to the 
Spanish government was about $8,000. Of course 
the pay of the officers and crew should be included, 
but that was not excessive. The annual salary of 
Admiral Christopher Columbus was equal to $320 
American money; of the three captains, $192 
each, and of the three pilots, about $140 each. The 
sailors were paid at the rate of $2.75 a month. 
The ship's physician could not have been considered 
a very important personage, as his salary was equal 
to $38.50 per annum. 



DR. FRANKLIN GOT THE MONEY 

DuRixG the War of the Revolution it became 
very necessary for the American colonies to secure 
financial aid from France. Benjamin Franklin 
was selected as the proper man to do it. Although 
seventy years old and suffering from disease, he 
accepted the appointment and proved to be the 
right man. He at once adapted himself to French 
ways and manners, and soon became very popular. 
The young nobles abandoned their swords for 
" Franklin canes," and " Franklin dolls " were dis- 
played for sale in the shops. Franklin took up his 
residence at Passay, a suburb of Paris, and lived 
in handsome style. John Adams, w'ho came over 
later to help him, was amazed at what he termed 
his extravagance. He found him, he says,, sur- 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 83 

rounded by seven servants and a chore-woman, and 
spending $13,000 a year while a solicitor for the 
needy Americans. But Franklin evidently knew his 
business. At any rate he accomplished what he 
was sent to do. 



THE DARTMOOR MASSACRE 

At the close of the war of 1812, England held 
6,000 Americans as prisoners, confined at Dart- 
moor, in Devonshire. Of these 3,500 were soldiers 
captured in battle, and 2,500 were seamen. The 
latter had been impressed by British cruisers and 
refused to serve on English ships, on the ground 
that they were American sailors. Some of them 
had been imprisoned for ten years or more. Peace 
was declared in December, 1814, but the prisoners 
did not hear of it till March. When the news finally 
reached them of course they were greatly elated, 
and expected to be set at liberty very shortly. As 
day after day passed with no sign of release they 
became restive. They demanded better food and 
better treatment, and when these were refused they 
showed signs of insubordination. One day the 
guards fired on the prisoners, killing five and wound- 
ing thirty-three. What was still more exasperat- 
ing, the British government pronounced the act jus- 
tifiable. When news of " the Dartmoor massacre " 
reached this country there was groat indignation, 
and no wonder. John Bull probably would think 
twice and count a hundred before doing such a 
thins: now. 



84. CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

A KINGDOM IN LAI^ MICHIGAN 

A KINGDOM was once set up on Beaver Island, in 
northern Lake Michigan, and flourished for some 
years. James Jesse Strang, a prominent Mormon, 
had quarreled with the leaders of his church, and 
in 1846 withdrew with a few followers to that 
island. Other Mormons joined the colony from time 
to time, and by the winter of 184-8 they were suf- 
ficiently numerous to threaten control of the island. 
On July 8, 1850, Strang was crowned king with 
elaborate ceremonies. There was much controversy 
between the Mormons and the other inhabitants of 
the island, mostly fishermen. While on a visit to 
Detroit President Fillmore heard of this little king- 
dom within the domain of the United States. He 
sent an armed vessel to Beaver Island and King 
Strang was captured and tried for treason. He 
conducted his own defense, and made such an elo- 
quent plea that he was acquitted. In 1856 he was 
assassinated, and his kingdom fell with him. 



TPIE HUNKERS AND THE BARNBURNERS 

At one time it looked as though there were going 
to be two new national political parties in this coun- 
try, one called the " Hunkers," the other the 
" Barnburners." In 184-i the southern Democrats 
were determined to prevent the nomination of Mar- 
tin Van Buren for the presidency. To accomplish 
this they adopted the two-thirds rule in the con- 
vention, which destroyed Van Buren's chances. 
This caused a split in the Democratic party, espe- 
cially in Van Buren's own state, New York. The 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 85 

Van Buren faction became known as " Barnburners," 
taking their name, it is said, from the story of the 
man whose barn was infested with rats and who 
burned the barn in order to get rid of them. The 
other faction was called "Hunkers," but why is 
not known. The split spread to other states, con- 
servative Democrats being known as " Hunkers," 
while the progressives were called " Barnburners." 
In 1848 both factions sent delegates from New 
York state to the national convention. The con- 
vention satisfied nobody by giving half the vote of 
the state to each faction. The " Barnburners " 
nominated a ticket of their own, later on. Their 
vote was not strong enough to carry any state, but 
it was sufficiently large to throw the election to the 
Whigs. 

A CONGRESS ON WHEELS 

The Continental congress which had charge of 
affairs during the Revolution had no fixed habita- 
tion. In September, ,1774, and also in May, 1775, 
it met at Philadelphia. In December, 1776, came 
the first rumor of General Howe's approach. A 
panic seized on congress, and it fled precipitately 
to Baltimore. Howe did not come, and in March, 
1777, it ventured back to Philadelphia. In Sep- 
tember it became alarmed again and fled, bag and 
baggage, to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Pausing 
only long enough to take breath, it went on to York, 
in the same state. In July, 1778, it returned to 
Philadelphia, after the evacuation of the city by 
the British. It remained there several years, but 
in June, 1783, it went to Princeton, New Jersey. 



86 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

The following November it met at Annapolis, Mary- 
land. The next year it met at Trenton, New Jer- 
sey, and in January, 1789, it went to New York 
City, where it remained till the adoption and rati- 
fication of the Constitution. Although it may be 
called a congress on wheels, it did some very effective 
work in the cause of freedom. 



GREAT EARTHQUAKE IN THE MISSISSIPPI 
VALLEY 

In the winter of 1811-12 there was a great earth- 
quake, or rather a series of earthquakes, in the 
Mississippi Valley. The shocks began on the night of 
December 16, and continued at irregular intervals 
all that winter. Between December 16 and March 
16 no less than 1,874 distinct shocks were recorded, 
of which eight were of the first order of intensity. 
The most severe ones occurred on December 16, 
January 23 and February 7. In some places along 
the banks of the Mississippi the earth would open 
in wide fissures, and suddenly closing again would 
throw mud, sand and water as high as the tree tops. 
" After shaking the Mississippi Valley to its center," 
says one writer of the time, " it vibrated along the 
courses of the rivers, passed the primitive mountain 
barriers, and died away along the shores of the 
Atlantic." The town of New Madrid, which seemed 
to be at the center of the disturbance, was prac- 
tically destroyed. The New Orleans, the first 
steamboat to navigate the waters of the Ohio and 
the Mississippi, was then making her first voyage, 
and those on board were very greatly alarmed. 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 87 

A KING WHO SAT ON HIS THRONE 400 
YEARS 

In the cathedral at Aachen, or Aix-la-Chapelle, 
may be seen a marble throne on which a ruler sat 
for nearly 400 years. He was the Emperor Charle- 
magne, or Charles the Great. At his death in 814 
his body, clothed in imperial robes, was placed on 
the throne, in a sitting position. On his head was 
placed a crown, in his right hand a scepter, and 
in his lap an open copy of the Gospels. In 1001 
Emperor Otto III. had the vault opened, and it 
is said the body was found in an excellent state of 
preservation. In 1215 Emperor Frederick II. had 
it removed from the vault and placed in a gold and 
silver coffin, in which it is still kept, in the treasury 
of the cathedral. From 1215 to 1558 this marble 
throne was used in the coronation ceremonies of the 
German emperors. After that they were crowned 
at Frankfort. 



THE KING HELD THE STIRRUP 

Pope Hadrian IV. was the only Englishman that 
ever sat on the papal throne. His real name was 
Nicholas Breakspear. His parents were poor, and 
he made his way in the world by his own exertions 
and force of character. ,He was elected Pope in 
1154, and died in 1159. Shortly after his election 
to the papacy Frederick Barbarosa came to Rome 
at the head of a large army for the purpose of 
receiving the crown of Germany from the hands 
of the pope. Hadrian went out to meet him, and 
demanded that as a symbolic act of courtesy he 



88 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

should hold the pope's stirrup. Frederick refused 
at first, and for two days they quarreled about it. 
English obstinacy finally won, but not until the pope 
had threatened to withhold the crown. This was 
the beginning of a long contention between the two, 
and this struggle between the papal authority and 
the Hoenstaufen dynasty was continued long after 
Hadrian's death, and finally ended in the destruction 
of the dynasty. 



HOW FLIES PROMOTED AMERICAN 
INDEPENDENCE 

It seems peculiar that flies should have assisted 
in the signing of the Declaration of Independence, 
yet such was the case. The only man who signed 
the Declaration on the day it was passed was the 
president of the convention, John Hancock, who 
said as he signed it, " There ! John Bull can see 
my name without spectacles ! " Most of the signers 
affixed their signatures a month later, on August 2. 
While they were gathered around the desk waiting 
their turns to sign, the flies from a near-by livery 
stable swarmed into the hall through the open win- 
dows and mercilessly assailed the silk-stockinged 
legs of the honorable members. Handkerchiefs in 
hand, they lashed the flies with such vigor as they 
could command on a sultry summer day. Despite 
their eff^orts, the annoyance at length became well- 
nigh intolerable, and the members made haste to 
bring the momentous business to a close. The 
authority for this bit of history is no less a per- 
sonage than the author of the Declaration, Thomas 
Jeff^erson. 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 89 

A CITY LOST THROUGH SILENCE 

Rome is said to have once been saved by the 
cackling of geese, but silence cost the people of 
Amyklae, an ancient Grecian city, their liberty. 
The report that an enemy was approaching had 
been spread so often, creating consternation among 
the inhabitants, and as often proved false, that the 
authorities finally passed a law forbidding any one 
to speak of such a thing. All went well for a time, 
but there came a day when an enemy did appear, 
a hostile Spartan army. But the citizens of Amy- 
klae were law-abiding. They talked of the weather, 
of the crops, of the approaching track meet, but 
never a word did they speak about the approaching 
army. Everybody obeyed the law, and no one told 
the authorities of the impending danger. Thus the 
city fell an easy victim to the invaders through the 
faithful obedience of its citizens to the law. 



THE WISE WOMEN OF WEINSBERG 

During the wars between the Guelphs and the 
Ghibellines, in the twelfth century, a battle was 
fought at Weinsberg, in which the Guelphs were 
victorious. Their commander, Conrad III., agreed 
that while he would hold the men as prisoners, the 
Ghibelline women might go away in peace. He fur- 
ther agreed that each woman might take with her 
as much of her personal belongings as she could 
carry, choosing whatever she might consider most 
valuable. Great was Conrad's astonishment when 
he saw them marching off, each woman with her 
husband, son or brother on her back, " her most 



90 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

precious treasure." But he seems to have admired 
the devotion of the women, and perhaps the humor 
of the situation appealed to him ; at any rate he let 
them go, bearing away their precious burdens. 



THE LAST SURVIVING SIGNER OF THE 
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 

When Charles Carroll of Carrollton affixed his 
signature to the Declaration of Independence an- 
other signer standing by remarked, " There go a 
few millions." Carroll was a rich man, and few 
if any of the other signers risked as much by the 
Revolution in the way of property as he did. But 
the Revolution succeeded and he did not lose his 
wealth. When an old man he assisted in the cere- 
mony of laying the first rail of the first railroad 
in the United States, the Baltimore & Ohio. In 
1831 Captain Alexander, of the British army, made 
a tour of the United States, and visited Charles 
Carroll, not then " of Carrollton " but of Baltimore. 
In a journal describing his travels he made this 
record: 

" At Baltimore I visited Charles Carroll, one of 
the signers of the Declaration of Independence. I 
found the venerable patriarch quite alone, and 
seemingly musing. . . . The old gentleman, 
dressed in a dark purple gown, and seated in a 
high-backed chair, was rather short of stature, and 
stooped under the burden of years. His nose was 
aquiline, and his expression was particularly mild 
and engaging. The speech, sight and hearing of 
the veteran had not much failed him, but his memory 
had." 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 91 

Carroll was then in his ninety-fourth year. He 
died November 14, 1832, the last surviving signer 
of the Declaration of Independence. 



A YOUNG KING'S DREAM 

Never perhaps did a king enter upon his reign 
with more exalted ideals than did Otto III., King 
of Germany and Holy Roman Emperor. Never 
perhaps did a king fail more utterly to realize his 
ambition. Born in 980, he came to his throne in 
995, a mere boy; yet such were his intellectual at- 
tainments that his generation called him the won- 
der of the world. Intensely religious, he believed 
himself divinely commissioned to do a great work 
for humanity. He had a magnificent scheme for 
making Rome the center of a new universal empire, 
with all the other kingdoms of the earth tributary 
to it. He reveled in the glories of the past, and it 
was the dream of his young life to restore them in 
all their magnificence. On his last journey to Rome 
he opened the tomb of Charlemagne, at Aix-la-Cha- 
pelle, and gazed upon the long dead monarch, 
sitting on his marble throne. In less than two 
years from that time they brought his own body 
back across the Alps and laid it near that of the 
great Emperor. He died at 22, on the very thresh- 
old of manhood, his dreams unfulfilled. 



THE OLD NATIONAL ROAD 

It is difficult for the present generation to realize 
the important part played by the " old National 
road " in the settlement of the central west. This 



92 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

road, or " National pike," as it was often called, 
extends from Cumberland, Md., to Vandalia, 111., 
a distance of about 1,200 miles. Across Ohio and 
Indiana it is almost as straight as an arrow. It 
was built by the United States government, under 
the supervision of the war department. It was pro- 
jected in 1806, and was constructed in sections, the 
government making appropriations from time to 
time. The last one was made in 1838, and the 
total appropriations were $6,824,919.33. Toll was 
collected from those traveling on the road, but it 
was never self-supporting. For many years it was 
the great highway to the west, and was traveled 
by many thousands of people in " prairie schooners," 
or covered wagons, seeking homes in the new coun- 
try. The road was a political factor of some im- 
portance at various times, some favoring and some 
opposing its construction and maintenance. At 
Plainfield, Ind., through which the road runs, there 
is an ancient elm still standing, known as " the 
Van Buren tree." Tradition has it that at one 
time when President Van Buren was going over the 
road on a tour of inspection, he was spilled in the 
mud in front of this tree, by reason of an axle that 
had been sawed almost in two by some political 
enemy. 



THE FIRST BOOK PRINTED IN AMERICA 

The first book printed on the American continent 
was issued, not in Boston, or New York, or Chicago, 
but in Mexico City. Jules Cromberger had a print- 
ing establishment in Seville, Spain, and in 1535 he 
concluded it would be a good idea to have a branch 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 93 

office in the new world. Accordingly, he sent over 
a printing press in charge of Juan Pablos, who was 
to be foreman and manager of the new office. This 
was the first printing press in America, and next 
year, 1536, the first book was issued. It was a 
Spanish translation of a work originally written in 
Greek, the Spanish title being " Escala Espiritual 
Para al Cielo." Translated into English this 
means " A Spiritual Ladder for Reaching Heaven." 
No copy of this book is known to be now in exist- 
ence. The same printing press turned out twelve 
other books before 1550, and eighty-five in all by 
the end of the century. 

AN UNFORTUNATE GREAT SPEECH 

America has produced no greater orator than 
Daniel Webster. For well nigh half a century he 
stood at the head of the American bar, and is still 
known as the great defender of the Constitution. 
Yet near the close of his career he made one speech 
that has clouded his fame ; a great speech, but an 
unfortunate one. It was in 1850, when the com- 
promise measure known as the Omnibus bill was 
before congress. Among other things it provided 
for strengthening the fugitive slave law. Webster 
was a senator from Massachusetts. He had al- 
ways been regarded as an enemy to slavery, and 
was expected to oppose the Omnibus bill with his 
powerful oratory. But he surprised and angered 
his friends by supporting the bill in an elaborate 
speech. The basis of his argument was that the 
Constitution had recognized slavery for fifty years, 
and obedience to the Constitution was paramount 



94. CUBIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

to every other duty. This argument, of course, 
did not appeal to the opponents of slavery. He 
was accused of sacrificing the principles of a life- 
time to political expediency. A presidential elec- 
tion was coming on, and he wanted to be president. 
He was charged with supporting the fugitive slave 
law for the purpose of securing southern votes in 
the coming convention. All this he vehemently 
denied, but his " seventh of March speech " was 
never forgotten or forgiven by his former friends. 

OPPOSITE OPINIONS OF A BOOK 

Sir William Cavendish, known in English his- 
tory as the first duke of Newcastle, was commander 
of King Charles the First's royal army in his con- 
test with Cromwell. Sir William's second wife, the 
Duchess Margaret, wrote a life of her husband, in 
which she depicted him as a " Most Illustrious 
Prince " and in every respect the pink of perfection. 
The work was supposed to be entirely authentic and 
truthful, for Sir William himself assisted in its 
preparation. It was published earl}^ in 1667, and 
many complimentary copies were sent out, in- 
cluding one to the officials of St. John's College, 
Cambridge University. In acknowledging its re- 
ceipt they wrote : 

" Your Excellency's book will not only survive 
our university, but hold date even with time itself; 
and incontinently this age, by reading your book, 
will lose its barbarity and rudeness, being made tame 
by the elegance of your style and manner." 

But old Samuel Pcpys was not quite so favorably 
impressed. In his celebrated " Diary," under date 
of March 18, 1667, he made this entry: 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 95 

" Staid at home reading the ridiculous History of 
my Lord Newcastle, wrote by his wife ; which shows 
her to be a mad, conceited, ridiculous woman, and 
he an asse to suffer her to write what she writes to 
him and of him." 



THE DANGER OF BEING WITTY 

Sir Henry Wotton, for twenty years England's 
ambassador to the court of Venice, discovered to 
his sorrow that it is not always wise to be witty, even 
in so simple a matter as writing in an autograph 
album. Once when visiting at the house of a friend 
his host brought out the visitor's book and re- 
quested Sir Henry to inscribe his name in it, to- 
gether with some appropriate sentiment. Willing 
to oblige and wishing to say something at once neat, 
witty and wise, he wrote the following, and ap- 
pended his name to it: 

" An ambassador is an honest man, sent abroad 
to lie for his country." 

But King James the First did not appreciate the 
effort of his ambassador. When told about it he 
was very angry, and after Sir Henry's term of 
office at Venice expired it was five long years be- 
fore he received another appointment at the royal 
hands. 



AN INFLUENTIAL OLD DOCTOR 

Galen was the most illustrious physician of an- 
tiquity. He was born 131 A. D., in Pergamus, 
Asia Minor, but spent a large portion of his life at 
Rome, where he had many great people for patients. 



96 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

He was very learned, and exceedingly proud of it. 
He wrote many treatises, and was a great investi- 
gator; in fact, he complacently believed that he had 
exhausted the possibilities of investigation. He 
found the medical profession divided into many sects 
or schools. After his time there was but one, the 
Galenic. He was very successful in his practice, 
yet when tried by the standards of modern science 
many of his theories and methods seem crude and 
even childish. His influence was far-reaching, for 
the Galenic system dominated the medical profession 
for more than a thousand years after his death. 
Never, perhaps, have the doctrines of one man ex- 
ercised so long, unbroken and tyrannical power over 
the minds of others as did those of Galen. 






WHY AMERICA INSTEAD OF COLUMBIA.? 

In the latter part of April, 1507, an anxious little 
group stood about the first printing press set up in 
the old town of St. Die, Lorraine, examining the 
sheets of the first book it issued to the world. It 
was a little treatise on geography, and its author 
was Prof. Martin Waldseemuller. A certain page 
in this book had far greater significance than any of 
the group imagined. At the close of an account 
of the voyage of Amerigo Vespucci to the New 
World the author said : " Now that those parts have 
been more extensively examined and another fourth 
part has been discovered by Vespucci, I do not see 
why we should rightly refuse to name it America." 
This was the first time the name " America " was 
suggested, and the suggestion was acted upon, 
probably without much thought. For many years 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 97 

Vespucci was blamed for having purposely robbed 
Columbus of the honor of furnishing a name for the 
new continent, but it is now conceded that he had 
nothing to do with the matter. " America " is a 
fine name, it is true ; but " Columbia " would have 
been finer, and more fitting. 



THE FIRST WHITE CHILD BORN IN 
AMERICA 

On July 22, 1587, a colony sent out by Sir Walter 
Raleigh landed at Roanoke, Virginia. In this 
colony, it is said, were ninety-one men, seventeen 
women and nine children. The colony was incor- 
porated as " The Borough of Raleigh in Virginia," 
and John White was chosen governor. His daugh- 
ter, August Eleanor, had married one of the colon- 
ists, a young man named Dare. On August 18 
Mrs. Dare gave birth to a daughter, to whom was 
given the name Virginia. She was the first white 
child born in America. Shortly after her birth 
Governor White returned to England for supplies. 
He remained longer than he had intended, and when 
he finally got back to Roanoke the colony had dis- 
appeared. He searched long and anxiously for the 
missing members, among whom were his daughter 
and his grandchild. But the lost colony was never 
found. Probably the older members were massa- 
cred by the Indians, and the children scattered 
among the various tribes. Thus the first white 
child born in America, if she grew up to woman- 
hood, probably passed her life in savagery and re- 
membered nothing of the ways of civilization. 



98 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

JOHN HENRY'S ATTEMPT TO DISRUPT 
THE UNION 

The Embargo Act, which was enacted shortly 
before the outbreak of the war of 1812, was very 
unpopular in New England, as it interfered greatly 
with the commerce of that section. Sir James 
Craig, governor of Canada, employed one John 
Henry, an Irishman by birth, but a naturalized 
American citizen, to go to Boston and ascertain 
whether the discontent was sufficient to make it 
probable that New England would care to sever its 
connection with the Union and line up with Canada. 
Henry remained in Boston three months, but as no 
pay for his expenses and services was forthcoming, 
he went to Washington and offered his documents 
for sale to the government authorities. The Presi- 
dent allowed him $50,000 out of the secret service 
fund, and sent him to France in the employ of the 
government. When the documents were laid before 
congress they made a great sensation. England 
claimed, however, that Craig had acted entirely on 
his own responsibility, and the excitement soon died 
away. 



THE FIRST MONEY COINED FOR AMERICA 

The earliest coinage of money for America is 
said to have been made for Virginia in 1612. The 
London Company had been formed for the purpose 
of pushing colonization work in Virginia, and in 
1609 Sir George Somers, an active promoter of the 
company, set out with an expedition. His vessels 
encountered a violent storm and were wrecked on 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 99 

the coast of one of the Bermuda islands. Somers 
took possession of the islands in the name of Great 
Britain. He was forced to remain there ten months, 
but finally reached Virginia. The Bermudas, often 
since then called Somers islands, were largely colo- 
nized by people from Virginia, and the relations 
between the two became intimate. This accounts 
for Virginia's first coins being made there. They 
were of brass, and on one side was represented a ship 
under full sail, firing a gun. On the other side 
were the words, *' Somers Island," and the figure 
of a hog, " in memory," as an old-time writer 
quaintly says, " of the abundance of hogges which 
the English found on their first landing." 



NO PAINT FOR THE PURITANS 

As is well known, the Puritans were extremely 
plain in their habits of living, and objected to all 
forms of ornamentation, not only in clothing but 
in architecture and other things. To a certain ex- 
tent they were right, for over-ornamentation is never 
commendable ; yet they sometimes carried their ideas 
of plainness to an extreme that seems ridiculous. 
In 1639 the Rev. Thomas Allen, a clergyman resid- 
ing at Charlestown, Massachusetts, was called to ac- 
count by the authorities for having his house 
painted. This was a serious charge, but he suc- 
ceeded in convincing them that the painting had 
been done before the house came into his possession, 
and that therefore he was not responsible for it. 
Moreover, he assured them that he did not approve 
of it. The first church building erected in Bos- 
ton was never painted, inside or out. In 1670 a 



100 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

list of all the mechanics in the Massachusetts colony 
was made out by the authorities, but it did not con- 
tain the name of a single painter. 



BOSTON'S FIRST FIRE 

Boston had its first fire on March 16, 1631. It 
has had many conflagrations since then, and of far 
greater dimensions ; but probably none that seemed 
more disastrous at the time, or that led to more 
important consequences. In this first fire two 
dwellings were burned to the ground. At that time 
the people had no lime with which to make mortar, 
so they constructed their chimneys of sticks, plas- 
tered over with clay. Chimneys built of such ma- 
terial were called *' catted " chimneys. The roofs 
of the dwellings were made of rushes and reeds. 
Thus the chimneys and roofs combined to render 
the houses exceedingly inflammable. After this 
first fire wooden chimneys and thatched roofs were 
forbidden. Four years later a fire at New Am- 
sterdam (New York) consumed in half an hour a 
building it had taken two years to erect. After 
that '• catted " chimneys and thatched roofs were 
forbidden there also. 



GENERAL WASHINGTON'S LIFE GUARD 

General Washington's Life Guard was organ- 
ized in the spring of 1776 and served until the close 
of the Revolutionary war. Its number varied at 
different times, from 60 to 250 men. They were 
soldiers in the regular service, chosen from the vari- 
ous regiments, and it was their special duty to pro- 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 101 

tect the person, baggage and papers of the chief. 
They were selected with special reference to their 
fitness for such work, physically and mentally, and, 
of course, absolute loyalty to the American cause 
was a prime requisite. At one time, when the army 
was stationed at New York, the Tories formed a 
plot to capture General Washington and deliver 
him to one of the British armed ships in the harbor. 
They succeeded in bribing one of the Life Guards 
to assist them, but fortunately the plot was discov- 
ered and the traitorous guard was hanged. The 
last survivor of the Life Guards was Uzal Knapp of 
Orange county, New York. He died in 1856, and 
in 1860 a monument was erected over his grave, at 
the foot of the flag staff in front of Washington's 
headquarters at Newburgh on the Hudson. 



BOOM TIMES AT THE NATIONAL CAPITAL 

Congress met in the city of Washington for the 
first time on the 22d of November, 1800. Only the 
north wing of the Capitol building was finished. 
The White House was in process of erection. 
There was a great deal of speculation in vacant lots, 
and prices soared to fabulous heights. One writer 
of the time, after describing the desolate condition 
of the grounds about the public buildings, adds : 
" There appears to be a confident expectation that 
this place will soon exceed any city in the world. 
No stranger can be here a day, and con- 
verse with the proprietors, without conceiving him- 
self in the company of crazy people. Their ig- 
norance of the rest of the world, and their delusion 
with respect to their own prospects, are without 



102 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

parallel. Immense sums have been squandered in 
buildings which are but partially finished, in situa- 
tions which are not, and never will be, the scenes of 
business, while the parts near the public buildings 
are almost wholly unimproved. . . . Though 
five times as much money has been expended as was 
necessary, and though the private buildings are in 
number sufficient for all who will have occasion to 
reside here, yet there is nothing convenient and 
nothing plenty but provisions ; there is no industry, 
society or business." 



A PARTING SHOT AT WASHINGTON 

When Washington retired to private life at the 
close of his second term as president on March 4, 
1799, it was not with the universal admiration of 
his countrymen. The Aurora, an opposition paper 
published in Philadelphia, printed a communication 
said to have been written by a member of the Penn- 
sylvania assembly, which opened thus : 

" The man who is the cause of all the misfortunes 
of our country is this day reduced to a level with 
his fellow citizens, and is no longer possessed of 
power to multiply evils upon the United States. 
If ever there was a period of rejoicing, this is the 
moment. Every heart in unison with the freedom 
and happiness of the people ought to beat high 
with exultation that the name of Washington from 
this day ceases to give currency to political iniquity 
and to legalized corruption. A new era is now 
opening upon us, an era which promises much to the 
people, for public measures must now stand upon 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 103 

their own merits, and nefarious projects can no 
longer be supported by a name." 

THE EARLIEST AMERICAN COLLEGE 

In 1616 the king of England ordered the bishop 
of London to collect money for a college to be 
founded in Virginia, and during the next three years 
a sum equal to $7,300 was raised and sent over for 
that purpose. In 1618 it was ordained that the 
college should be located at Henrico, and 10,000 
acres of land were allotted for its endowment. This 
land was to be rented to settlers. One-tenth of the 
income was to be used in educating Indians, and 
nine-tenths in educating English children. The 
London company donated a small sum for a build- 
ing and a few books to start a library. A good at- 
tendance was assured, for 1,261 children were sent 
over from London to be educated in the new college. 
It was also decided to establish a preparatory 
school at Charles City. But before either institu- 
tion got under way the terrible Indian massacre of 
1622 took place, in which one-twelfth of all the 
English settlers in Virginia were killed. This put 
an end to all thoughts except of personal safety, 
and it is doubtful whether any actual instruction 
was ever given in this earliest (prospective) Ameri- 
can college. 



MAKING THE CONSTITUTION 

Making the Constitution of the United States 
was not an easy task. The convention sat daily 
in Philadelphia from May 25 to September 17, 1787. 
There were some very able men in it, and on some 



104 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

questions there were almost as many opinions as 
there were members. The discussions were carried 
on in a dignified manner, but a great deal of com- 
promising was necessary in order to reach an agree- 
ment. On July 10 General Washington, president 
of the convention, wrote Hamilton that he almost 
despaired of a favorable outcome, and regretted 
having had anything to do with the matter. When 
the Constitution was finally framed up and signed 
it was agreed to forward it to congress, which 
should submit it to the various legislatures, and 
that it should be considered adopted when ratified 
by the legislatures of nine states. In the state 
legislatures it had a rocky road to travel. The 
ninth state to adopt it was New Hampshire, on June 
21, 1788. New York, North Carolina and Rhode 
Island adopted it later. In only three states, Dela- 
ware, New Jersey and Georgia, was the legislative 
vote to adopt it unanimous. Pennsylvania adopted 
it by a two-thirds majority. In Rhode Island the 
majority was only two. In other states the vote 
stood: Connecticut, 128 to 40; Massachusetts, 187 
to 168; Maryland, 63 to 12; South Carolina, 149 
to 73; New Hampshire, 57 to 46; Virginia, 89 
to 79. 



AN ENGLISHMAN WHO WAS LOYAL TO 
AMERICA 

John Cartwright was the first English writer 
who openly advocated the independence of the 
United States of America. He had the courage of 
his convictions ; for, though a prominent naval of- 
ficer, with a fine prospect for advancement, " he re- 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 105 

fused," as his epitaph says, " to draw his sword 
against the rising liberties of an oppressed and 
struggling people." Lord Howe invited him to join 
an expedition against the Americans. Though pas- 
sionately attached to the navy and a great admirer 
of Howe, he answered that he could not engage in 
an unjust war. That refusal ended his naval ca- 
reer, and he turned his attention to political and so- 
cial reforms. He started the movement that finally 
overthrew the " rotten borough " system in Eng- 
land. In his work for reform he made many power- 
ful enemies, and when eighty years old he was ar- 
rested and tried for being " a malicious, seditious 
and evil-minded person." The jury, obeying the 
instructions of a political judge, found him guilty, 
and he was fined £100. But he did not care much 
for a little thing like that. 



THE DIGGERS 

In the years 1649-50 there arose a strange party 
in England called the Diggers. They might be 
seen in large numbers in some localities, diligently 
digging up and cultivating the waste lands and out- 
of-the-way places. They objected to the land being 
held by a few proud, covetous men, " to bag and barn 
up the treasures of the earth from others." Yet, as 
one of their leaders said, " they intended to meddle 
only with what was common and unfilled, and to 
make it fruitful for the use of man." Gerrard Win- 
stanley, their chief leader, urged that the poor 
should be settled on the common or waste lands, and 
that in this way the country would yield much larger 
crops, the hungry be fed, and times be made better 



106 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

for everybody. The Diggers were very peaceable 
people, and not at all disposed to make trouble, but 
the movement was suppressed by the authorities. 
Nevertheless it had its influence in later years, for 
from 1760 to 1830 more than a thousand acts of 
parliament were adopted for inclosing and utilizing 
waste lands. 



^ AMERICA'S FIRST NEWSPAPER 

The first newspaper in America was issued in 
Boston on September 25, 1690. It was " printed by 
R. Pierce for Benjamin Harris." In the first issue, 
the publisher promised that the paper " shall be fur- 
nished once a moneth (or if a Glut of Occurrences 
happen, oftener) with an account of such consider- 
able things as have occurred unto our notice ; to give 
a faithful relation of all such things, and to enlighten 
the public as to the occurrents of Divine Provi- 
dence." It gave a summary of the important news 
of the time, and was quite readable if not exactly 
spicy. To us it would appear a very harmless 
sheet; but the authorities of that day were rigid 
in their censorship of the press, and after a few is- 
sues Mr. Harris' paper was suppressed because " it 
came out contrary to law, and contained reflections 
of a very high nature." 



A LIBERTY MARTYR OF LONG AGO 

On June 7, 1381, Wat Tyler was chosen leader by 
60,000 men to remonstrate with Richard II. against 
the oppressions of the people. On June 15 he was 
dead. In eight days this man, of whose antecedents 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 107 

and personality we know nothing, made for himself 
a permanent place in English history. During that 
time he commanded a great army; he confronted the 
king as an equal ; he ordered the execution of the two 
chief ministers of the crown, and it was done; he 
wrested from the king a promise of social reform. 
But in the hour of victory he was struck down by 
the hand of an enemy, and the great uprising failed 
in its undertaking. Yet it was not altogether in 
vain. It stirred to life the desire for personal lib- 
erty in the laboring people, a desire that has grown 
to giant proportions with the passing years. This 
was the first time that English peasants and laborers 
asserted that they were men. Centuries afterward 
some of the seed thus sown found its way across the 
sea, and to-day 90,000,000 free Americans owe a 
debt of gratitude to the memory of Wat Tyler and 
his men. 



THE FIRST ENGLISH AGITATOR 

King Richard I. of England was much more con- 
cerned about crusading in the Holy Land than he 
was about governing his people. His right-hand 
man, Archbishop Walter, was far more interested 
in raising money for Richard than he was in the 
spiritual needs of his flock. By various obnoxious 
measures he collected immense sums. Government 
offices, earldoms and bishoprics were sold to the 
highest bidders. Judges bought their seats and 
cities bought their charters. Tenants of crown 
lands were forced to pay double prices for their 
holdings. The poor were taxed to the limit, and, 
as one writer said, " England was reduced to pov- 



108 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

erty from one sea to the other." But a champion of 
the people arose in the person of William Fitzosbert. 
He did not belong to the laboring classes, but he 
had the nerve to stand up for their rights. The 
ruling classes hated him because he declared the king 
was being defrauded b}'^ financial corruption. The 
laboring people flocked to him in great numbers, 
and for a time he was too strong for the archbishop. 
But some of his followers became frightened at the 
possible results of his bold speeches and deserted him. 
Being pursued by the authorities he took refuge in 
a church tower. By order of the archbishop it was 
set on fire. Fitzosbert surrendered, and was con- 
demned to die. He was stripped naked, tied to the 
tail of a horse and dragged over the rough stones 
of the streets of London. He was dead before Ty- 
burn was reached, but the poor broken body was 
hanged in chains. Thus perished the first English 
agitator. 



WHEN THE CRESCENT WENT DOWN 
BEFORE THE CROSS 

It will soon be twelve centuries since the Cross 
and the Crescent met in deadly combat in the beauti- 
ful valley of the Loire, in France, and the Crescent 
went down in ignominous defeat. Mahomet had 
been dead a hundred years, but his worshipers were 
pressing forward with fanatical zeal, and bid fair 
to conquer the earth. They had invaded Persia 
and Syria, and had pressed into Egypt. Thence 
they had swarmed into Spain, laying waste its towns 
and cities with fire and sword. And now they were 
overrunning France in plundering hordes, dealing 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 109 

death and destruction to the inhabitants. Against 
them went Charles Martel, until then a petty Frank- 
ish king. He was able to muster only a few thou- 
sand soldiers, picked up here and there ; but they 
were made of stern stuff, and were defending their 
homes. For two days the battle raged — some ac- 
counts say seven days — and at its close many thou- 
sands of Saracens lay dead, while the rest were in 
terror-stricken flight. It was a marvelous victory, 
and it rolled back the tide of Moslem conquest. But 
for it, Mohammedanism might have overrun Europe, 
and set back the hands of progress a thousand years. 



A REMARKABLE FAMILY OF ACTORS 

In 1753 John Ward, an English theatrical man- 
ager, opposed a match between his daughter and a 
member of his company, not wishing her to marry 
an actor. He finally gave consent, however, con- 
soling himself with the thought that the young man 
was not much of an actor. In this he was mistaken, 
for the young man, whose name was Roger Kemble, 
not only succeeded well in his profession, but became 
the founder of a family that is remarkable in the 
annals of the English stage. Twelve children were 
born to the couple, of whom eight reached ma- 
turity; and every one of the eight made some effort 
on the stage. The eldest child, Sarah, became the 
renowned Mrs. Siddons. The oldest son, John 
Philip, was probably the greatest actor of his day, 
and was known as " the great Kemble." The elev- 
enth child, Charles, was a renowned comedian, while 
his daughter, Fanny Kemble, was probably the best 
known to the public of all the family. Her sister, 



110 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

Adelaide, attained considerable popularity as a pub- 
lic singer. Her son married the daughter of Gen- 
eral Grant. 



STRANGE DYING REQUEST OF TWO KINGS 

Edward I., king of England, and Robert Bruce, 
king of Scotland, were deadly enemies, and faced 
each other on many a hard fought battlefield ; and 
strangely enough each left a dying request that 
after death his heart should be removed from his 
body and buried in the Holy Land. But in neither 
case was the request complied with. Edward's son 
disobeyed his father's command, and buried his body 
in Westminster Abbey, the heart with it. Bruce's 
friend, Sir James Douglas, attempted to carry out 
his instructions. The heart was removed from the 
body, embalmed, and inclosed in a silver case. This 
Sir James suspended from his neck and started for 
the Holy Land. Unfortunately he stopped in Spain 
to assist in a war against the Moors, and was slain 
in battle. His body was found, the locket recovered, 
and the heart returned to Scotland and buried at 
JNIelrose Abbey. Had their instructions been car- 
ried out the hearts of these two inveterate enemies 
might possibly have reposed side by side in the 
same sepulchre. 



A GREAT COR SIC AN PATRIOT 

Napoleon was not the only great man born on 
the island of Corsica. Pasquale de Paoli, one of the 
great patriots of history, was a Corsican. For 
more than two and a half centuries Corsica had been 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 111 

under the control of the Genoese. In 1755, under 
the leadership of Paoli, she threw off the Genoan 
yoke. For fourteen years thereafter Paoli admin- 
istered the affairs of the island, and did it wisely 
and well. He brought about many reforms, and 
encouraged commerce and the arts. In 1769, hav- 
ing " purchased '* the island from the Genoese, 
France landed an army of 22,000 soldiers. Paoli 
with a few thousand Corsicans met them boldly, 
but was badly defeated. With his little army re- 
duced to 537 men and surrounded by 4,000 French, 
he cut his way out and escaped to England. The 
French conquered the island, but at a cost of more 
than 10,000 men, nearly half of whom were killed. 
Paoli remained in England twenty years. At the 
outbreak of the French Revolution he returned to 
Corsica and became military governor. He soon 
broke with the French, however, and returned to 
England, where he died in 1807. Eighty years 
afterward his ashes were removed to Corsica and en- 
tombed with great honors. Lamartine, the eminent 
French writer, said : " Corsica remains still in the 
place of a mere province, but Paoli assumes his place 
among the ranks of great men." 



HOW KENTUCKY FOUGHT JOHN BULL 

Seldom has there been a more one-sided battle 
than that of New Orleans, fought January 8, 1815. 
So far as numbers were concerned, the advantage 
was with the British; for they had 12,000 soldiers, 
while General Jackson could muster barely 6,000. 
In discipline, too, the British were far superior, for 
they were well trained veterans who had seen service 



112 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

on the battlefields of Europe. The American sol- 
diers, on the other hand, were for the most part raw 
militia, pioneers in coonskin caps and homespun 
clothing. But in results the one-sidedness was the 
other way. For three weeks Jackson had been train- 
ing his raw soldiers, and when the British advanced 
to the attack they found the Americans strongly in- 
trenched and well prepared to receive them. The 
slaughter was terrific. The British loss was about 
2,600 killed and wounded, while on the American 
side only eight were killed and thirteen wounded. 
And the pity of it was, there was no need of the bat- 
tle, for peace had been declared between the two 
countries. Among the American soldiers were many 
from Kentucky, and for years afterward this song 
was often sung in that state: 

"Jackson led to the cypress swamp: 
The ground was low and mucky ; 

There stood John Bull in martial pomp. 
And here stood old Kentucky. 

And when so near we saw them wink. 
We thought it time to stop 'em ; 

Lord ! It would have done your heart good 
To see Kentuckians pop 'em." 



HOW PRESCOTT FOUGHT AT BUNKER HILL 

Two men were standing on Copp's Hill, in Boston, 
watching the opening of the battle of Bunker Hill 
through a field glass. One of them, observing the 
leader of the Americans mount the parapet and ex- 
pose himself to great danger, handed the field glass 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 113 

to the other and asked him if he knew the officer. 
" Yes," was the reply ; " he is my brother-in-law." 
"Will he fight?" asked the first one. "I can not 
answer for his men," replied the other, " but he will 
fight you to the gates of hell." The man who asked 
the question was General Gage, commander of the 
British army. The man who answered it was Col- 
onel Willard, who ought to have been a stanch 
American patriot, but who chose the Tory side. 
The man they were talking about was Colonel Will- 
iam Prescott, whose gallant fight at Bunker Hill that 
day enrolled his name among the immortals. 



A TERRIBLE BATTLESHIP 

On March 14, 1814, the congress of the United 
States appropriated the sum of $320,000 for the 
construction of a war vessel in the shape of a " float- 
ing battery," designed by Robert Fulton. This bat- 
tery was intended to be a very deadly aff*air, for it 
was planned to shoot scalding water and red-hot 
cannon balls at the enemy. This was the first steam 
war vessel built by the American government. She 
was christened the Demologas, but after the de- 
signer's death her name was changed to the Ful- 
ton, in his honor. She was launched October 29, 
1814, but her engine was not put in till the following 
May. By that time the war of 1812 was over, and 
the terrible battleship never got a chance to squirt 
hot water at the British navy. She was afterwards 
made over into a receiving ship for raw naval re- 
cruits, and finally ended her rather inglorious career 
by blowing up. 



114 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

WHEN WASHINGTON WENT WOOING 

George Washington was a hustler, even in matri- 
monial affairs. When a young man of twenty-six 
he took dinner at the house of a friend one day, 
and there met a good-looking young widow named 
Martha Custis. She must have been charming, for 
George spent the whole afternoon in her society, and 
then accepted her invitation to remain to tea. It 
was evidently a case of ardent love at first sight, for 
bright and early next morning he was again at the 
front door, seeking admission. Before noon that 
day they were engaged to be married, and married 
they were, shortly afterward, she " in silk and satin, 
laces and brocade, with pearls on her neck and in 
her ears," and he " in blue and silver trimmed with 
scarlet, and with gold buckles at his knees and on 
his shoes." After the wedding ceremony, which no 
doubt was highly impressive, they rode away to 
Mount Vernon, not together in the same carriage 
as bridal couples do now, but she in a " coach and 
six," and he on horseback, riding proudly along- 
side. 



THE CRAZY PREACHER OF KENT 

For twenty years John Ball, " the crazy preacher 
of Kent," harangued the people, in season and out, 
wherever he could get an audience. He had but one 
text, and from that he always preached: 

" When Adam delv'd and Eve span 
Who then was the gentleman.'' " 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 115 

On this he rung the changes, but always keeping 
to the front the equality of men. Nothing daunted 
him. In spite of ridicule and prison cells and whip- 
pings, he kept on preaching. Not until Wat Tyler's 
rebellion collapsed and his own head was cut off, 
did he stop. Four hundred years later the doctrine 
he preached was incorporated in the American Dec- 
claration of Independence. 

And there are good reasons for believing that 
Mary Ball Washington, the mother of the great gen- 
eral of the Revolution and first president of the 
United States, was a lineal descendant of " the mad 
preacher of Kent." 

A KALEIDOSCOPIC ADMINISTRATION 

The ninth administration of the government of 
the United States had more changes of cabinet mem- 
bers than any other administration in the history 
of the country. The campaign which preceded it 
was known as the " Tippecanoe and Tyler too " cam- 
paign, in which General William H. Harrison was 
elected president and John Tyler victe-president. 
Harrison was inaugurated on March 4, 1841, and 
died just one month later. Thus the presidency de- 
volved upon Vice-President Tyler. He retained 
Harrison's cabinet members in office at first, but 
early in his administration they all dropped out. 
Many of their successors also dropped out, for in 
the four years the country had five secretaries of 
state, four secretaries of the treasury, four secre- 
taries of war, five secretaries of the navy, two post- 
master generals, and two attorney generals — 
twenty-two cabinet officers in all. One reason for 



116 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

the many changes was that Tyler completely broke 
with the party that elected him. 



A ROOM FULL OF GOLD 

PiZARRO, the conqueror of Mexico, heard that in 
the valley of Caxamalca were immense treasures of 
gold and silver. So on September 24, 1532, he set 
out in search of them. Arriving at the town of 
Caxamalca, he sent for Atahualpa, chief lord among 
the natives. Fearing for his life, Atahualpa 
promised Pizarro a great quantity of gold and sil- 
ver. " How much? " asked Pizarro. " I will give," 
replied Atahualpa, " gold enough to fill a room 22 
feet long and 17 feet wide, and the height will be 
once and a half a man's stature." He also promised 
enough silver to fill a chamber twice over, besides 
many golden pots and jars, and to do it all in two 
months. He kept his promise. The precious metals 
came, sometimes 20,000 pesos, and sometimes 50,000 
or 60,000 pesos of gold a day. Pizarro had the 
vessels and plate melted down and counted, and it is 
estimated the total value was $17,500,000 of our 
money. Of this Pizarro had his share of 200,000 
pesos of gold and 50,000 of silver. A fifth of the 
whole was set apart for the Spanish king, and the 
rest was divided among Pizarro's friends and fol- 
lowers. 



THE ORIGIN OF " YANKEE DOODLE " 

About the middle of the eighteenth century Eng- 
land was exceedingly anxious to reduce the power 
and prestige of the French in Canada, and with 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 117 

this in view had an army stationed on the bank of 
the Hudson, a little below the present site of the 
city of Albany. The American colonies were called 
upon for assistance, and recruits came straggling 
in, a motley crew, " some with long coats, some 
with short coats, and some with no coats at all." 
Their appearance was so ludicrous that a British 
surgeon named Shackburg composed " Yankee 
Doodle " in derision of the raw recruits, and passed 
copies of it around as a joke. But the Provincials 
themselves were mightily pleased with the song, and 
soon everybody in the camp was whistling or sing- 
ing it. Little did they think that twenty years 
from then the strains of " Yankee Doodle " would 
inspire the heroes of Bunker Hill, or that in less than 
thirty years Cornwallis and his army would march 
into the American lines to the same tune. 



HOW WARREN BRAVED THE BRITISH LION 

It was the 5th of March, 1775. The people of 
Boston were gathering in Old South Church, in 
memory of the Boston Massacre five years before. 
Some British officers had publicly declared that if 
any man dared speak of the massacre that day his 
life would pay the forfeit. Joseph Warren's soul 
had taken fire at such a threat, and he requested 
that he might speak at that meeting. The church 
was soon filled to overflowing. British officers 
crowded in and occupied the aisles, the pulpit steps 
and even the pulpit itself. Climbing a ladder on the 
outside, Warren stepped in at the pulpit window. 
Awed by his coolness and intrepidity, the officers 
made way for him. An awful stillness fell upon the 



118 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

multitude, and every man felt the palpitation of his 
own heart. Then the orator began, and there fell 
from his lips such a speech as it is seldom the lot of 
men to hear. With words that burned their way 
into the very soul he recounted the injustice the col- 
onies had suffered at the hands of the mother coun- 
try, and called upon the citizens to strike for liberty. 
He hurled defiance at the representatives of Eng- 
land, and denounced the Boston massacre in terrific 
language. The British officers said never a word. 
The speech ended, they quietly withdrew. They 
dared not make good their threat; but in three 
months from that time Joseph Warren lay dead on 
Bunker Hill. 



A FIRE-FIGHTING INVENTOR 

John Lofting, a citizen of London in the latter 
part of the eighteenth century, had a passion for 
fighting fires. Though never a member of the fire 
department, he always responded to an alarm, and 
was usually one of the first to arrive on the scene. 
He rendered efficient service, but would accept no 
pay. He has another and more substantial claim 
to distinction, however. He was a metal worker by 
trade, and in 1792 he invented a contrivance to pro- 
tect the thumb while sewing. It was a sort of bell- 
shaped cup, hence it was called a thumb-bell. In the 
course of time this was changed into the more eu- 
phonious " thimble." The article is now worn on 
one of the fingers while sewing, instead of on the 
thumb as formerly, though sailors stick to the old 
custom. Lofting was granted a patent for a ma- 
chine to make " thumb-bells," and he established a 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 119 

factory at Islington, near London. Whether he 
still continued to fight fires history does not say; 
but he made money, and laid the foundation of a 
fortune which his descendants are enjoying to this 
day. 



LINCOLN'S FIRST VISIT TO CHICAGO 

At the great river and harbor convention held at 
Chicago in 1847 " Hon. A. Lincoln " was enrolled as 
one of the three delegates from Sangamon county, 
Illinois. In the official proceedings of the conven- 
tion, published shortly afterward, it is stated in one 
place that " Abraham Lincoln of Illinois being called 
upon addressed the convention briefly." The secre- 
tary did not think his speech important enough to 
quote, but there was one man among the delegates 
who appreciated it. Horace Greeley wrote to his 
paper, the New York Tribune: " In the afternoon 
Hon. Abraham Lincoln, a tall specimen of an Illi- 
noisan, just elected to congress from the only Whig 
district in the state, was called on and spoke briefly 
and happily." And the next day the Chicago Jour- 
nal gave the young politician this send-ofF: " Abra- 
ham Lincoln, the only Whig representative to con- 
gress from this state, we are happy to see is 
in attendance upon the convention. This is his first 
visit to the commercial emporium of the state, and 
we have no doubt his visit will impress him more 
deeply, if possible, with its importance, and inspire 
a higher zeal for the great interest of river and har- 
bor improvements. We expect much of him as a 
representative in congress and we have no doubt our 
expectations will be more than realized, for never 



120 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

was reliance placed in a nobler heart and a sounder 
judgment. We know the banner he bears will never 
be soiled." 



WHY ILLINOISANS ARE CALLED SUCKERS 

Two or three explanations of why the people of 
Illinois are called " Suckers " have been given, but 
probably the most plausible is the one in connection 
with the lead mines at Galena. In the early settle- 
ment of the Mississippi valley marvelous stories were 
circulated concerning fortunes made at the mines, 
and these attracted to Galena and vicinity a great 
many of the Illinois farmers, especially from the 
lower portion of the state. It was customary for 
them, after putting in their spring crops, to ascend 
the Mississippi and labor at the mines until fall, and 
then return to gather their crops ; thus imitating the 
fish called suckers, which ascend the river in spring 
to deposit their spawn, and return in the fall. 
Hence such persons were called " Suckers," and the 
term became general in its application to all the 
citizens of the state. 



PATRICK HENRY AND SLAVERY 

Patrick Henry, as every school boy knows, de- 
manded liberty at the top of his voice, and his 
words still ring in our ears, though his tongue has 
been silent for a century. Yet Patrick Henry owned 
20 slaves, and even at his death did not set them 
free, but willed them to his wife. It seems strange 
that so ardent an advocate of freedom for himself 
should deny it to others. This question of slavery 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 121 

bothered a good many of the revolutionary leaders. 
Many of them were slave holders, and while they be- 
lieved in liberty, to have freed their slaves would 
have been to throw away a large part of their for- 
tunes. Possibly some of our latter-day patriots 
would hesitate under similar circumstances. To his 
credit be it said that Patrick Henry appreciated his 
inconsistency. Writing of slavery he said : " I 
believe a time will come when an opportunity will be 
offered to abolish this lamentable evil. ... I 
am drawn along by ye general inconvenience of liv- 
ing without them. I will not, I can not, justify it." 
In his will he directed that in case his wife married 
again she should have no more of his estate than 
she could get by law. She did marry again, without 
waiting very long; so perhaps he might as well have 
freed his slaves after all. 



AS WELLINGTON EXPLAINED WATERLOO 

Military dispatches are usually very formal, and 
necessarily so ; for it would hardly do to allow of- 
ficers to exercise great freedom of language, es- 
pecially in reporting battles. At the same time the 
non-military reader would understand such reports 
better if they were couched in less formal language. 
Shortly after the battle of Waterloo the Duke of 
Wellington wrote this to a friend, and we have no 
difficulty in understanding what he means : " You 
will have heard of our battle of the 18th. Never 
did I see such a pounding match. Both were what 
the boxers call ' gluttons.' Napoleon did not man- 
euver at all. He just moved forward in the old 
style in columns, and was driven off in the old style. 



122 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

The only difference was, that he mixed cavalry with 
his infantry, and supported both with an enormous 
quantity of artillery. I had the infantry for some 
time in squares, and I had the French cavalry walk- 
ing about as if they had been our own. I never saw 
the British infantry behave so well." 



ORIGIN OF THE SLEEPING CAR 

Just who first conceived the idea of a sleeping car 
for railway passengers is not clear. One " stand- 
ard " encyclopedia claims the honor for Philip H. 
Laufman ; but as it also makes him a railway mana- 
ger at the age of sixteen its statements must be ac- 
cepted with caution. The first sleeping cars ever 
designed were used on the Cumberland Valley rail- 
road, in Pennsylvania, in 1838. In these the sleep- 
ing arrangements consisted of three tiers of shelves, 
two feet wide, on each side of the car, made to fold 
up against the sides during the day. About 1858 
or '59 Webster Wagner built some sleepers for the 
New York Central; but they were little more than 
" enlarged copies of the night-bunks in the passen- 
ger boats of the Erie canal." Wagner built fine cars 
afterward, but to George M. Pullman belongs the 
chief credit for perfecting the modern sleeping car. 
From 1859 to 1863 he experimented, transforming 
some old passenger cars into fairly comfortable 
sleepers. They were upholstered in plush, lighted 
with coal oil lamps and heated with box stoves. In 
1864 he perfected the " Pioneer," which was really 
the first sleeper of the modern type, at a cost of 
$18,000. This car was one of the ten which formed 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 123 

Lincoln's funeral train from Chicago to Spring- 
field. 



WASHINGTON'S FIRST MONUMENT 

The magnificent shaft at the national capital, 
towering to a height of 555 feet, is not the first 
monument that was erected in honor of George Wash- 
ington. In the year 1809 the citizens of Boons- 
boro, Maryland, built one by their own labor and en- 
tirely at their own expense. The farmers of the 
vicinity hauled great blocks of stone and laid the 
foundation, and upon this was erected a huge pile of 
stones. The spot chosen was the highest point of 
land in that part of the country, and the monu- 
ment could be seen for miles around. Western 
Maryland was largely settled by German immi- 
grants who had a strong desire for freedom and no 
ties, political or social, to bind them to Great Bri- 
tain. There were very few Tories to be found in 
that part of the country, and some of the best fight- 
ing" blood of the Revolution came from that section. 



A MANLY SPEECH BY GEORGE III. 

After the close of the Revolutionary war John 
Adams was sent as the first minister of the United 
States to the court of St. James. When he ap- 
peared before the king it was a memorable scene. 
After a few words in regard to his mission, Adams 
expressed a hope that " the good old humor " might 
be restored between the branches of the Anglo-Saxon 
family. The king listened with respect and dignity. 
He was never accounted a good speaker, but there 



124 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

was pathos, manliness and a touch of eloquence in 
his reply. With a tremor in his voice, and with long 
pauses between the clauses of his sentences, he said: 
" I wish you, sir, to believe, and that it may be under- 
stood in America, that I have done nothing in the 
late contest but what I thought myself indispensably 
bound to do by my duty to my people, I will be 
very frank with you. I was the last to consent to the 
separation ; but the separation having become in- 
evitable, I have always said, and I say now, that I 
would be the first to meet the friendship of the 
United States as an independent power." 



PLENTY OF BEER BUT NO TOBACCO 

Beer and tobacco are supposed by some people 
to be on about the same footing, but a certain 
company in London 200 years ago did not seem to 
think so. It was the business of this company to 
look after the welfare of the emigrants who had 
gone out from the mother country to seek homes in 
the New World. In 1629 it sent over the good ship 
Talbot, loaded with provisions, clothing, etc., to 
the Massachusetts Bay colony. The " etc.," in this 
instance included forty-seven tuns of beer, which 
no doubt, was duly appreciated by the colonists. 
But by the same ship the company sent a long list 
of instructions in regard to their conduct, telling 
them what they should and should not do. One of 
the things they were forbidden to do was to cultivate 
and use tobacco, " unless it be some small quantitie 
for mere necessitie, and for phisick for the preserva- 
tion of their health, and that the same be taken pri- 
vately by antient men and none other." 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 125 

THE OLD CAPITOL BUILDING 

The structure in Washington City known as the 
" Old Capitol Building " has a memorable history. 
It was erected in 1800, and was originally designed 
as a tavern, or boarding house. On account of poor 
management the tavern was closed after a few 
years. During the War of 1812 the British cap- 
tured Washington and burned several of the public 
buildings, including the Capitol. The government 
then purchased this tavern building for the use of 
congress, and here both houses met for several 
years. Within its walls two presidents were in- 
augurated, and in it John C. Calhoun died. After 
the new Capitol building was completed the " Old 
Capitol " was abandoned by congress, and after that 
it was used for various purposes, hotel, boarding 
school, etc. In 1861 the government again took 
charge of it, and used it during the Civil war as a 
prison for captured southern soldiers. 



UNFORTUNATE JOHN FITCH 

To John Fitch rightfully belongs the credit for 
having invented the steamboat. In 1786 he built 
one that went eight miles an hour. A company 
was formed and a larger boat built next year. 
It was 45 feet long and had twelve paddles worked 
by steam. This boat made a successful trial trip 
on the Delaware August 22, 1787. But there were 
many skeptics, and much fun was poked at Fitch 
and his boat. His supporters could not endure the 
ridicule, and deserted him. He went to Paris, but 
could do nothing there on account of the revolu- 



126 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

tion. While there he intrusted his plans to the 
American minister, who allowed Robert Fulton to 
see and study them. Fulton improved on them and 
built his first boat in 1803. Discouraged and 
heartbroken, Fitch returned to America, and com- 
mitted suicide at Bardstown, Kentucky, in 1798. 
He left a manuscript giving the story of his life, 
in which he says ; " The day will come when some 
more powerful man will get fame and riches from 
my invention, but nobody will believe that poor old 
John Fitch can do anything worthy of attention." 



CRAZY EUROPEAN RULERS 

During the time Napoleon was turning Europe 
topsy-turvy with his splendid military genius more 
than half the European thrones were occupied by 
either lunatics or half-witted persons. Emperor 
Paul of Russia had a feeble intellect, a scanty edu- 
cation, and an absurd and well-nigh insane self-con- 
ceit. Christian VII. of Denmark was so feeble 
and morbid that he was incapable of ruling. Queen 
Marie of Portugal was hopelessly insane, and had 
to be kept under restraint. Charles IV. of Spain 
was a weak ruler, hardly a shade more than half- 
witted. His brother, Ferdinand of Naples, was a 
little better, but not much. And George III. of 
England, intellectually sluggish and obstinate by 
nature, was destined to pass the last ten years of 
his life in hopeless insanity. Napoleon's career 
probably would have been shorter and less brilliant 
had the European thrones been occupied by vigor- 
ous monarchs. 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 127 

JOSEPH FRANCIS, LIFE SAVER 

In 1849 Joseph Francis, who had already won a 
great reputation as a builder of life-boats and life- 
saving apparatus, built a metallic life-boat, or life- 
car, and asked the co-operation of the United States 
government in giving it a trial. Up to that time 
only wood had been used in the construction of life- 
boats, and the government had no faith in the new- 
fangled idea. It refused to give him assistance of 
any kind, so he established and maintained the boat 
at his own expense on the New Jersey coast. In 
.January, 1850, it rescued 200 of 201 emigrants 
from the wreck of the British ship Ayrshire. The 
only one lost was a man who insisted on riding 
through the surf on the outside of the car — prob- 
ably wanted to see the scenery. During the next 
four years 2,150 lives were saved by the use of 
Francis' life-boats. Foreign countries loaded him 
with honors, and thirty-eight years afterward, in 
1888, eongress awarded him a gold medal " for his 
life-long services to humanity and to his country." 
He died in 1893, in his ninety-third year. Both the 
1849 life-car and the gold medal may be seen in the 
Smithsonian Institution at Washington. 



A ROMAN TRIBUTE TO LINCOLN 

About a year after the death of President Lin- 
coln there was found in the basement of the White 
House a large stone with an inscription, in Italian, 
of which this is a translation : " To Abraham Lin- 
coln, President for the second time of the American 
Republic, citizens of Rome present this stone, from 



128 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

the wall of Servius Tullius, by which the memory 
of each of those brave assertors of liberty may be 
associated." No one about the White House knew 
anything about the stone, or had ever heard of it. 
No one remembered having heard Lincoln speak of 
it. It seems that after his re-election these Ro- 
man patriots, wishing to show their admiration of 
his character and their appreciation of his work, 
took this stone from the wall of the wise and just 
old Roman emperor, had the inscription placed 
upon it, and sent it to him as a testimonial. It is 
believed that in order to avoid notoriety, and in keep- 
ing with his modest nature, he quietly placed the 
stone in the basement and said nothing about it to 
any one. It may now be seen in the custodian's 
room of the Lincoln monument at Springfield, where 
it was placed by direction of congress. 



SOME WILD-CAT RAILROADING 

Some remarkable railroads were built in this 
country — on paper — during the years 1836-1840. 
One of the most ambitious was " The Great Western 
Railroad," projected to run from New York city 
to Lake Erie, and thence westward to the Mississippi 
river, a distance of about 1,050 miles. It was to 
be built on piling, and the total cost was estimated 
at $15,000,000. Great enthusiasm prevailed, and 
much excitement. Lands were received for sub- 
scriptions at extravagant prices. Cities were staked 
out at various points along the proposed route. 
Some people even feared that all the land adjacent 
to the road would be occupied by cities and none 
be left for farming purposes. Numerous other 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 129 

roads were projected to the north and to the south, 
to connect with this great trunk Hne, and " terminal 
cities " of magnificent proportions were laid out. 
One state legislature (Illinois) planned the con- 
struction of 1,300 miles of " state railroad," to cost 
over a billion dollars. More than $8,000,000 were 
actually appropriated for internal improvements, 
and when Governor Ford took office in 1842 there 
was hardly enough unappropriated money in the 
state treasury to buy a postage stamp. 



BELLE BOYD'S THRILLING CAREER 

Belle Boyd was born in Martinsburg, Va., in 
1843. Shortly after the outbreak of the Civil war 
she shot and killed a Federal soldier who assailed 
her mother. She gave Stonewall Jackson informa- 
tion that enabled him to drive General Banks and 
his army out of the Shenandoah valley. She was 
captured and confined in the military prison at 
Washington for three months, and was then ex- 
changed for a Union colonel. She went south, and 
was commissioned as captain in the Confederate 
service. She was again captured, taken to Washing- 
ton and sentenced to be shot ; but she was reprieved 
and again exchanged, this time for a general. She 
afterward sailed for England with important dis- 
patches from the Confederate government, but was 
a third time captured and a second time sentenced 
to be shot. The sentence was finally commuted, and 
she was escorted to the Canadian border by a United 
States marshal and told never to return to this 
country on pain of death. She did return, though, 
for she died at Kilbourne, Wis., in 1890. 



130 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

QUEER DOINGS AT BALTIMORE 

There were some queer doings at Baltimore 
eighty years ago. Witness this from Griffith's 
"Annals of Baltimore," published in 1833: "De- 
cember 14 (1829), thirty-seven persons are drawn 
by one horse, in a car, planned by Mr. Ross Winans, 
of New Jersey, on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 
at the rate of about ten miles per hour, or as fast 
as the horse could trot or gallop ; which was done in 
the presence and to the astonishment of a multitude 
of spectators, who, not having witnessed such an ex- 
hibition could scarcely realize the effect." And 
" Peter Parley's First Book of History," published 
about the same time, says : " But the most curious 
thing at Baltimore is the railroad. This consists 
of iron bars laid along the ground, and made fast 
so that carriages with small wheels may run along 
them with facility. In this way, each horse will be 
able to draw as much as ten horses on a common 
road. A part of this railroad is already done, and 
if you choose to take a ride upon it, you may do 
so. You will mount a carriage something like a 
stage, and then you will be drawn along by two 
horses at the rate of twelve miles an hour." 



OUR FIRST AMERICAN ADMIRAL 

At the beginning of the American Revolution 
England had the most powerful navy in the world, 
while the Americans had none at all. The Conti- 
nental congress appointed a naval committee, which 
purchased and fitted out eight vessels, at a total 
cost of $134,333. Esek Hopkins was appointed 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 131 

commander-in-chief. With these eight vessels, car- 
rying 110 guns and manned by men without naval 
discipline, Commodore Hopkins was sent against 
the English fleet of 78 men-of-war, mounting 2,078 
guns. Hopkins had only 40 guns throwing shot of 
nine pounds or more, while the British had at least 
500 18-pounders and heavier guns. With this tiny 
outfit the American commander was directed to " at- 
tack, take and destroy " all the enemy's naval force 
he could find. Hopkins probably foresaw that he 
was doomed to failure, and maneuvered quite a little 
before attacking the enemy. For this he was court- 
martialed and dismissed. The total armament of 
the American navy reached 42 vessels during the 
Revolution, all of which were practically destroyed 
before the end of the war. 



CHILDREN IN COAL MINES 

It seems incredible that within the last seventy- 
five years little children were employed in the coal 
mines of England and often treated no better than 
work-animals, yet such was the case. In 1842 a 
parliamentary commission reported that in many 
mines it was common for children to begin work 
under-ground at seven years old. In some they 
began at six, and in a few instances as early as five 
years old. One extreme case was reported where 
children were worked " as low as four years old," 
and " so young they had to be brought to work in 
their bed-gowns." In another case, the report said, 
" Children are sometimes brought to the pit at the 
age of six years, and are taken out of bed at four 
o'clock." The working day was from 14 to 16 



132 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

hours. The ventilation in nearly all the mines was 
bad, and the drainage worse. The children were 
made to draw loads by means of a girdle and 
chain, going on all-fours, often " through avenues 
not so good as a common sewer, quite as wet, and 
oftentimes more contracted." The report aroused 
indignation and resulted not only in excluding chil- 
dren from mines, but in revolutionizing labor condi- 
tions generally in England. 



THE CRADLE OF LIBERTY 

The Fanueil family of Boston loved liberty. 
Their ancestors had fled from the Huguenot perse- 
cution in France, and they appreciated the blessings 
of freedom. They were well-to-do, and it is said 
that when one of them died in 1738 three thousand 
pairs of mourning gloves were provided for the 
attendants at the funeral. In 1742 Peter Fanueil 
built a house and gave it to the city of Boston. His 
main purpose was to provide a public market place, 
and to this the ground floor was devoted. The 
upper room was fitted up as a hall for public gath- 
erings. The Sons of Liberty met here during the 
incipient stages of the Revolution, and from this 
fact the building became known as " the cradle of 
liberty." It burned down in 1761, some years after 
the donor's death, but it was immediately rebuilt by 
the city. In 1805 it was enlarged by the addition 
of another story and by making it forty feet wider. 
As thus rebuilt the structure remained substantially 
the same until 1899, when more changes were made. 
The market facilities have been greatly extended, 
and now occupy a whole square. 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 133 

AN ILLUSTRIOUS ARAB 

Among the illustrious patriots of history no name 
shines with greater luster than that of Abd- 
el-Kader, an Arab and a Mohammedan. His life 
was one long series of magnificent struggles and 
crushing defeats. His chosen work was to reform 
the political and social system of his native country, 
Algiers, but his hopes were cruelly frustrated. For 
fifteen years, at the head of the little Algierian 
army, he fought heroically against France, one of 
the great military powers of the world. He yielded 
only when every possible defense had failed, and 
was held a captive four years. Through it all he 
preserved an exalted character, and set a fine ex- 
ample for the Christian world. His closing years 
were spent at Damascus, in study and good works. 
In 1860, when a terrible Moslem outbreak occurred 
in that city, he helped to repress the uprising, and 
saved the lives of thousands of Christians. For 
this, and in honor of his exalted character, France 
conferred upon him the order of the Cross of the 
Legion of Honor ; Russia, that of the White Eagle ; 
Prussia, that of the Black Eagle; and Greece, that 
of the Savior. England sent him a magnificent 
gun, inlaid with gold ; and the United States, a fine 
brace of pistols with like adornments. 



HOW ONE SHIP FOUGHT A WHOLE FLEET 

On August 31, 1591, a British fleet of six vessels 
lay quietly at anchor near the Azores. Suddenly, 
and almost without warning, a great Spanish ar- 
mada of 53 ships bore down upon them. Consterna- 



134 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

tion seized the admiral, and he fled precipitately with 
his flagship, commanding the others to follow. 
They did so — all but one, the Revenge. Aboard 
that was grim Richard Grenville, the vice-admiral. 
He scorned to flee, and when the Spaniards called 
upon him to surrender he contemptuously refused. 
He had but 140 men fit for fighting, but he told the 
Spaniards he was going to cut through their line. 
Glaring round upon his crew, who feared him more 
than they did any enemy, he ordered them to at- 
tack the Spanish ships. For fifteen hours the bat- 
tle raged, Grenville alternately cheering, storming, 
praying and devoting the Spaniards to perdition. 
He yielded only when less than twenty of his men 
could stand up to fight and he himself was mor- 
tally wounded. When it was all over the Spaniards 
figured out their losses thus : Two ships sunk, 
fifteen more or less damaged, more than 1,000 men 
killed and wounded, and by one little English ship. 



DR. FRANKLIN'S POLITE SARCASM 

Dr. Benjamin Franklin was noted for his polite- 
ness, though he not infrequently tinged it with sar- 
casm. In 1774 he was dismissed by the British 
government from the office of surveyor general of 
the postoffice in America, no reason being assigned 
except that his majesty the king had no further 
need of his services. Two years later the Conti- 
nental congress appointed him postmaster general 
of all North America; whereupon he could not resist 
the temptation to write the English minister that 
the British government need not worry any more 
about postal affairs in America as they had again 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 135 

been placed in competent hands. Some months after 
the opening of the war he summed up the situation 
thus in a letter to a friend in England : " The 
English have made a campaign here, which cost two 
million ; they have gained a mile of ground, and lost 
half of it back again. They have lost 1,500 men 
and killed 150 Yankees. Meantime we have had be- 
tween 50,000 and 70,000 children born. How long 
will it take to conquer America.'' " 



A HEROIC SPANISH MAIDEN 

A WOMAN helped to give Napoleon his first check 
and to show Europe that he was not invincible. 
Her name was Agustina, and she is known in his- 
tory as the Maid of Saragossa. In the Peninsular 
war the city of Saragossa was twice besieged by the 
French army ; once in the summer of 1808 and again 
the following winter. The city had no fortifications 
but crumbling walls, behind which were a few ancient 
cannon ; but the whole population, men women and 
children, rushed to its defense. Bravest of them all 
was Agustina. She was not a woman of quality, 
only a lemonade seller in the streets ; but she per- 
formed mighty deeds of valor and by her example 
encouraged others to acts of bravery. Once when 
a cannoneer fell mortally wounded she snatched the 
fuse from his hand and herself fired the cannon. 
For her brave actions she was made an officer in the 
Spanish army, and presented with many decora- 
tions. Saragossa fell, but only after 50,000 of her 
citizens had perished from war and pestilence. Her 
heroic defense staggered Napoleon for a time, for 
it revealed the intrepid spirit of a people when 



136 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

fighting for their homes. Agustina lived to be very 
old, dying in 1857. 



THE FIRST GERMAN RAILROAD 

The oldest railroad in Germany is one of the 
shortest railway lines in the world. The Ludwig 
railway, connecting the cities of Furth and Nurem- 
berg, is just three and three-quarter miles long, and 
has never been extended. It was conceived by Jo- 
hannes Scharrer, a v/ealthy hop merchant. The 
plan was first published in 1832, and as King Lud- 
wig favored its construction it was named after him. 
The first locomotive was supplied by Stephenson, at 
a cost of $1,265. The first trip was made Novem- 
ber 21, 1835, the train consisting of five cars, carry- 
ing 90 passengers. Time, about 12 minutes, only 
half the power of the locomotive being used. Two 
weeks later trains began running regularly, and the 
road has been in successful operation ever since. 
The company owns eight locomotives, 35 passenger 
cars and six baggage and freight cars. There are 
about 90 employes. The road carries about 4,000,- 
000 passengers a year. 



A NAPOLEONIC COLONY IN ALABAMA 

The overthrow of Napoleon and the establishment 
of a new regime in France was followed by the ban- 
ishment of many of his prominent followers and sup- 
porters. Among them were generals and other of- 
ficers of high rank, and ladies who had figured 
prominently in court circles. One group of them 
came to America, with the idea of establishing a lit- 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 137 

tie community of their own, but subject to the juris- 
diction of the United States. Congress granted 
them, by act of March 3, 1817, four townships of 
land, to be selected by them in the state of Ala- 
bama ; the conditions being that they should culti- 
vate the vine on one acre in each quarter section, 
and the olive on another, and at the end of 14* 
years pay the government $2 an acre for the land. 
About 400 men and women came over, under the 
leadership of Marshal Grouchy and General Lefe- 
bre. Most of them settled in two villages, Demop- 
olis and Eaglesville, in what is now Marengo 
county. Here they lived for several years in quiet- 
ness and simplicity. But the vine and the olive 
did not prosper, and the leaders became discour- 
aged. The colony gradually melted away, though 
it is said the descendants of some of these aristo- 
cratic French settlers are still to be found in that re- 
gion. 



A FIGHTING PREACHER 

In 1772 Rev. John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg took 
charge of the little Lutheran church at Woodstock, 
Virginia, and for three years attended faithfully to 
his pastoral duties. During that time, however, 
the revolutionary rumblings became louder and 
louder, and the preacher became more and more in- 
terested in the burning question of independence. 
Finally, one Sabbath morning, he delivered an im- 
pressive discourse on patriotism, and dwelt at length 
on the duty of all good citizens to uphold their coun- 
try in the hour of need. At the close he exclaimed 
in a voice like a trumpet, " There is a time for all 



138 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

things ; a time to preach and a time to fight, and 
now is the time to fight." Then throwing off his 
sacerdotal gown he stood before his astonished con- 
gregation in the full regimental dress of a Vir- 
ginia colonel. He ordered the drums to be beaten 
at the church door for recruits, and on that day 
nearly 300 men enlisted, including almost every able- 
bodied man of his congregation. He was made col- 
onel of the Eighth Virginia regiment, afterwards be- 
came a major-general, and gave proof of his bravery 
on many a hard-fought battlefield. 



THE GREAT BATTLE OF MAUVILLE 

Never was there fought a more hotly contested 
or bloodier battle on American soil than that of 
Mauville (the ancient Mobile), on October 18, 1540. 
On the one side was DeSoto and a few hundred fol- 
lowers, armed with guns and protected by armor. 
On the other were many thousands of Indians, armed 
with bows and arrows and such like primitive 
weapons. To the Spaniards, defeat would mean 
annihilation ; while the Indians fought with the 
desperation bom of a determination to drive out the 
invaders or perish in the attempt. All through the 
afternoon they fought hand to hand, the Spanish 
soldiers charging gallantly, the Indians rushing 
upon them with sublime indifference to death. But 
discipline and steel prevailed, and the Indians were 
overwhelmed by the terrific onslaughts of the Span- 
ish cavalry. When darkness fell, the streets of the In- 
dian village were literally piled with Indian corpses 
But DeSoto paid dearly for his victory, for forty- 
two of his devoted followers lay dead, and the sur- 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 139 

vivors carried 1,700 wounds that needed a surgeon's 
care. 



A BAND OF PLUCKY EXPLORERS 

That was a plucky little band of explorers who, 
on May 24, 1869, under the leadership of one-armed 
Major Powell, plunged into the canyon of Green 
river, where the Union Pacific railway crosses it, de- 
termined to follow the river to its junction with 
the Grand, and then follow the Colorado river until 
it emerges on the lowlands of southern California. 
They knew what it meant — a perilous journey of 
more than a thousand miles, through dark canyons a 
mile or more in depth, over whirling rapids, through 
raging torrents and past yawning chasms, every 
foot of the way beset with difficulty and danger, and 
every moment threatening destruction. It took 
them over three months to make the journey, but 
they made it ; seven of the ten explorers and four of 
the six boats emerging in safety. This journey, 
by reason of the knowledge gained and the results 
which followed, may be regarded as the beginning of 
the great conservation movement in this country. 

A NAVAL VICTORY WITHOUT BLOODSHED 

In 1778 Captain Rathburne, commanding a little 
American vessel with twenty-five men and twelve 
four-pound guns, swooped down upon the island of 
New Providence with its nest of Tories and its Brit- 
ish garrison. With a quick dash he landed, seized 
the forts, raised the American flag, released some 
American prisoners, and captured six British ves- 



140 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

sels. A privateer of sixteen guns lay at anchor in 
the port, and a British sloop-of-war hovered out- 
side ; but they were too surprised to do anything. 
The Tories armed themselves and attempted to cap- 
ture Rathburne and his men, but changed their 
minds when he threatened to burn the town. He 
held the place two days, largely for the fun of it, 
no doubt. Then he spiked the guns, carried off the 
arms and ammunition, burned two of the captured 
ships and sailed away with the other four. Nor 
lost he a single man. 



A VALIANT IRISH SEA CAPTAIN 

On May 11, 1775, Captain Jeremiah O'Brien, 
owner of a little lumber sloop, chased and captured 
the British war schooner Margaretta, carrying four 
light guns and fourteen swivel pieces. O'Brien's 
crew was thirty-five landsmen, mostly Irish, armed 
with muskets, pistols, blunderbuses, axes and pitch- 
forks. The schooner had more men than the sloop, 
and was a commissioned war vessel. She had been 
somewhat disabled in a squall, and a lucky shot from 
the lumber sloop killed the man at the wheel and 
cleared the quarterdeck. Another shot killed the 
British captain. O'Brien gave the order to board, 
and the schooner was captured after a hand-to-hand 
fight. About twenty men in all were killed and 
wounded. O'Brien mounted the captured guns on a 
stronger sloop and put out to sea. Two British 
cruisers were sent to capture him. By a wily strata- 
gem he separated them, fought each in turn and took 
both of them prisoners. 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 14.1 

THE FINEST TOMB IN THE WORLD 

The most magnificent mausoleum in the world is 
at Agra, India. It was built by Emperor Shah 
Jehan, in the seventeenth century, in honor of his 
favorite queen. It is built entirely of marble and 
brick, and is adorned internally with exquisite mo- 
saics of precious stones. The total cost was more 
than $15,000,000. But with all its grandeur and 
magnificence there is abundant tragedy connected 
with its building. Twenty-two thousand men, driven 
like slaves, labored for seventeen years, through 
tropical rains and torrid summer heat, to erect this 
marvelous tomb. Hundreds of them perished, but 
others took their places. The cost was so great 
that the revenues were depleted, and the people rose 
in rebellion. The emperor's son usurped the throne, 
and during the last seven years of his life the em- 
peror looked out upon the splendid mausoleum from 
a prison window. He was not allowed to enter it 
while living, but now his body rests beneath its 
dome. 



A DmiPING GROUND FOR JAIL-BIRDS 

Prior to the revolution England used the Amer- 
ican colonies as a dumping-ground for her undesir- 
able citizens. It is estimated that between 1717 and 
1775 not less than 50,000 convicts, of all kinds and 
of both sexes, were taken from the jails of Great 
Britain and Ireland and transported tb the Amer- 
ican colonies, where they were condemned to hard 
labor and hired out to the settlers. The Maryland 
colony suffered most from the affliction, 20,000 or 



142 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

more of the jail-birds being sent there. Some of 
them, however, had been convicted of slight offenses, 
and were easily transformed into good citizens of 
the new world. At one time Dr. Franklin remon- 
strated with the British government against the 
practice of sending their convicts over here. The 
ministers urged that it was absolutely necessary. 
" Then," he replied, " would not the same reasoning 
justify us in sending all our rattlesnakes to Eng- 
land? " 



THE MAN BEHIND COLUMBUS 

Prince Henry of Portugal demonstrated to the 
world that a king's son may be useful as well as 
ornamental. He was a man of excellent character, 
a fine scholar, and wonderfully energetic. He had 
an intense desire for knowledge, and did far more 
than any other man of his time to dispel the imag- 
inary terrors of the deep and open up to civilization 
the unknown regions of the earth. It was due to 
him that the great continent of Africa became 
known to the civilized world, and the system of con- 
tinuous and systematic exploration dates from his 
time. He died in 1460, a third of a century before 
Columbus set out on his great voyage of discovery ; 
but it was the study of the Portuguese explorations 
that prompted Columbus to undertake his journey. 
If the Portuguese could go so far southward, why 
should not he go as far westward? Thus it comes 
that this man, almost unknown except to scholars, 
stands back of Columbus. Without his work, Co- 
lumbus might have remained a simple Genoese sailor, 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 143 

ai»d America not have been discovered for another 
hundred years. 



A HUNGARIAN HERO 

Hungary boasts of several national heroes, but 
none of them has a finer record for bravery than 
Miklos Zrinyi. He fought many a battle in behalf 
of his country, but the supreme hour of his life 
came at the close. On August 5, 1566, with 3,000 
gallant followers, he took refuge in the little for- 
tress of Sziget, and defended it against a great 
Turkish host, led by Suleiman the Magnificent, in 
person. For four weeks the siege went on, the 
Turks furiously assaulting the little fortress again 
and again, only to be beaten back each time by 
Zrinyi and his men. Finally, on September 7, the 
little Hungarian band, or what was left of it, led by 
Zrinyi, rushed out upon the Turkish host, deter- 
mined to cut their way through or die in the at- 
tempt. They died, every man of them, Zrinyi the 
first of all. But it was an expensive victory to the 
Turks, for it cost them twenty thousand lives. 



LINCOLN'S JOURNEY TO WASHINGTON 

In these days of rapid railway transit it seems 
remarkable that it should have taken President-elect 
Lincoln and his party twelve days to make the jour- 
ney from Springfield, Illinois, to Washington. Of 
course the fact that it was a speech-making trip 
accounts in large part for the lengthy schedule, as 
it does also for the circuitous route — from Spring- 
field to Indianapolis, to Cincinnati, to Columbus, 



144 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

to Pittsburg, to Cleveland, to Buffalo, to Albany, 
to New York, to Philadelphia, to Harrisburg, to 
Washington, a distance of 1,700 or 1,800 miles. 
Then there were no good sleeping cars in those 
days, and the party traveled only by day, stopping 
over at night in the larger cities. The presidential 
train was a short one: the engine, tender, one bag- 
gage car and one passenger coach. There were in- 
numerable stops along the way, where people gath- 
ered by thousands, anxious to see and hear the man 
who was to guide the destinies of the nation during 
the next four years. At Harrisburg there was a 
change in programme. A plot was discovered to as- 
sassinate the president-elect while passing through 
Baltimore, so he returned to Philadelphia by special 
train, and went through Baltimore in the night, ar- 
riving at Washington ahead of time. 



AMERICA'S FIRST LAWYER 

About 1641 Thomas Lechford came over from 
England and set up for the practice of law in Bos- 
ton. He made a failure of it, partly for want of 
clients, but mainly because the governor and magis- 
trates violently opposed him. They had no use for 
lawyers, believing themselves perfectly competent 
to handle all controversies that might arise in the 
colony. The Puritan fathers in England held law- 
yers in abhorrence. John Rogers, the famous Puri- 
tan preacher of London, spoke of " the incredible 
wickedness of that profession, and their guiltiness 
of all manner of sins which the nation lies under." 
This being the opinion of the Puritan leaders in 
England, no wonder the brethren in Boston deter- 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 145 

mined to exclude them. Up to the time of the Revo- 
lutionary war lawyers were generally looked upon 
in this country as unsuited to good society. 
Though he failed in the legal profession, Lechford 
wrote a good book, which he called " Plain Dealing; 
Or, News from New England." 



THE LAND OWNER BOTH JUDGE AND 
JURY 

Before the time of Edward I. the private land 
owner in England had things pretty much his own 
way. Not the least of his powers was that of com- 
plete jurisdiction over his own domain. He held his 
own court, being both judge and jury, and all with- 
in his borders were subject to his rule. The gallows 
for hanging men and the pit for drowning women 
were prominent features of every estate. In those 
days the right of trying criminals was one of the 
perquisites attached to the ownership of Baynard's 
castle, in London. It was owned by Sir Robert 
Fitzwalter, and many years after his death this 
right of jurisdiction was claimed by his descendants. 
One of his privileges which they claimed was that of 
drowning in the Thames all traitors caught within 
his territory. Little by little this power of juris- 
diction was wrested from the private land owners, 
but it was not entirely abolished till 1745. 



ENGLISH SYMPATHY FOR AMERICA 

The sentiment in England against America dur- 
ing the Revolutionary war was not unanimous by 
any means. If a popular vote had been taken it is 



146 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

likely that a majority would have been found favor- 
ing the American side. On June 24, 1775, the lord- 
mayor and aldermen of London adopted an " Ad- 
dress, Remonstrance and Petition " to the king, ex- 
pressing their abhorrence of the tyrannical measures 
pursued against their fellow subjects in America, 
and asking him to dismiss his minister and counsel- 
ors who were responsible for such an unrighteous 
war. Being notified of this, the king signified his 
willingness to receive the petition at his next levee, 
or public reception. The lord-mayor and aldermen 
refused to present it except when he was sitting on 
his throne. He replied that he would receive any 
kind of a petition, but he must be the judge as to 
where. Both sides were stubborn, and the peti- 
tion was never officially presented. They took care, 
however, that a copy of it was presented to the King 
in private. 



A SOAP REBELLION 

Soap was one of the factors that contributed to 
the downfall of Charles I. of England. He was al- 
ways in need of money, and was in the habit of 
granting monopolies for the manufacture and sale 
of various commodities, charging the monopolists 
good round sums for their privileges. The scheme 
worked well, and he realized something like £200,- 
000 from this source. The practice aroused a great 
deal of opposition, however. About 1630 he granted 
a patent to a company of soap makers, who were to 
be the sole manufacturers of that useful article in 
England. They paid him £10,000 cash and £8 
per ton for all soap produced. Then the women 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 147 

rose in rebellion. They petitioned against it, com- 
plaining that the new soap burned the linen, scalded 
the fingers and wasted in keeping. Not being able 
to get at Charles himself, they clamorously besieged 
the lord-mayor of London, demanding that he do 
something for their relief. He shrank from meeting 
them, and was reprimanded by Charles for his cow- 
ardice. 



FIFTH MONARCHY MEN 

One curious by-product of the great Revolution 
in England was the organization known as " Fifth 
Monarchy Men." These people believed that only 
the godly are fit to govern, and that all civil author- 
ity should be lodged in the church. They believed 
also that a new reign was near at hand, which 
should be known as " The Fifth Monarchy," to suc- 
ceed the Assyrian, the Persian, the Greek and the 
Roman, during which Christ and his saints should 
reign on earth a thousand years. They sought to 
abolish all existing laws, and substitute a simpler 
code based on the law of Moses. At first they sup- 
ported Cromwell's government, believing it to be a 
preparation for the new order of things. But they 
soon grew tired of waiting for the fulfillment of their 
hopes, and began to agitate against the govern- 
ment and villify Cromwell. The arrest and impris- 
onment of several of their leaders cooled their ardor, 
and they remained quiet for some time. After the 
restoration of Charles to the throne they renewed 
the agitation and attempted to take possession of 
London. Most of them were either killed or cap- 
tured, and eleven of the leaders were executed for 



148 CUKIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

high treason. Thus vanished their visions of an 
impending millennium. 



A GREAT ADMIRAL WHO DIED POOR 

In these days of vast fortunes, when the struggle 
for wealth is so strenuous, it is refreshing to read 
about Admiral Blake of the British navy. Few 
men have had more or better opportunities to become 
rich than he. His career as an admiral was very 
brilliant. He won many victories over the Dutch, 
the Spaniards and the Portuguese. He swept the 
Mediterranean clear of pirates, and restored com- 
merce to its normal activity. It was under his pen- 
non that England first attained supremacy of the 
seas. In the battle of Santa Cruz, off the island of 
TenerifFe, he destroyed the Spanish fleet " amid 
whirlwinds of fire and iron hail," and captured, it is 
said, thirty-eight wagon loads of silver. Yet he 
never profited financially by his victories, and when 
he died, in 1657, his estate amounted to less than 
$2,500. 



WHY NEW YORK IS NOT A DUTCH 
CITY 

In 1613 Samuel Argall, captain of a small armed 
English vessel, sailed up the coast of Maine, osten- 
sibly to protect the English fishermen, but in reality 
to destroy such French colonies as he might find 
up and down the coast. He attended to his busi- 
ness, burning and pillaging several French settle- 
ments. On his way back, by way of variety, he de- 
scended on the Dutch traders on Manhattan Island, 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 149 

destroyed many of their huts, and compelled them 
to acknowledge the sovereignty of England. This 
trip of the savage old captain resulted in confining 
the French settlements to the St. Lawrence, sub- 
jugating the Dutch and leaving a clear field to the 
English. Had it not been for this expedition. New 
York might to-day be a Dutch city — possibly. 

ELI WHITNEY'S TROUBLES 

Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793. 
The new machine created great excitement, and be- 
fore he could complete his model and secure his 
patents, scoundrels broke into his shop, stole his 
ideas, and made other machines along the same lines. 
Many rivals appeared, and he had to fight infringe- 
ments on all sides. In 1795 his shop and all his 
machines and papers were burned. This misfortune 
threw him into bankruptcy, with a debt of $4,000 
hanging over him. The first important infringe- 
ment suit went against him. Several state legisla- 
tures with whom he had contracts tried to nullify 
them. In all he had more than sixty lawsuits, many 
of which were decided against him. He struggled 
against adverse circumstances for fifteen years, and 
then gave it up. It is said he did not make a dollar 
out of his invention, though it revolutionized the 
cotton industry and added a thousand million dol- 
lars to the revenues of the southern states. 



THE CZAR'S AIRLINE RAILROAD 

Autocratic power is well illustrated by the story 
of the building of the railroad connecting St. Peters- 
burg and Moscow. Two Americans were employed, 



150 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

it is said, to lay out and build the line. When the 
plans were all ready they laid them before Emperor 
Nicholas. Noticing at once that the line deviated 
in some places to avoid difficulties and in others to 
tap certain important cities and towns he shook 
his head and said it wouldn't do ; that he wanted no 
such twisting railway lines in his dominions. Tak- 
ing a ruler and pen, he drew a straight line be- 
tween the two cities. " There," he said, " a straight 
line is the shortest distance between two points. 
Make your road follow this line." Thus it comes 
that there is one railroad almost or quite as direct 
in reality as it appears on the map. 



THE FIRST LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 
IN AMERICA 

In 1619 Sir George Yeardley arrived in Vir- 
ginia with a commission as governor of the colony. 
Among his instructions was one that brought great 
joy to the colonists. It was to the effect that a 
general assembly should be held yearly, composed of 
the governor and council, and two Burgesses from 
each plantation, to be elected by the people. This 
assembly was to have power to make laws for the 
colony. It assembled at Jamestown, July 30, and 
was the first legislative body to meet on American 
soil. The sessions were held in the little Episcopal 
church which, we are told, " the governor caused to 
be kept passing sweet, and trimmed up with divers 
flowers." There were 22 elected Burghers, all citi- 
zens of a high type. The assembly remained in ses- 
sion only five days, yet in that time it enacted some 
excellent laws. Governor Hutchinson, the Tory his- 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 151 

torian, tell us in his book that " In 1619 a house 
of Burgesses broke out at Jamestown.'* Similar 
assemblies, elected by the people, have been " break- 
ing out " in America ever since. 



TROUBLES IN LAYING THE ATLANTIC 
CABLE 

Cyrus Field labored incessantly for twelve years 
and made fifty voyages across the Atlantic before 
he finally succeeded in accomplishing his great work 
of laying a cable across the ocean. The first cable 
was completed August 5, 1858. After a short time 
it ceased to work, and the friends of the enterprise 
were greatly disheartened. The Civil war came on, 
making further progress impossible for the time. 
But Field held on, and in 1865 the second cable was 
begun. After the Great Eastern had proceeded 
1,200 miles, unwinding this second cable, the cable 
parted. Still Field persevered, though $6,000,- 
000 had been sunk in the enterprise. In July, 1866, 
a third cable, 2,000 miles long, was coiled on the 
Great Eastern and she started once more across the 
Atlantic. This time the experiment was a complete 
success. 



POSTAGE RATES IN 1824 

In 1824 the U. S. government charged six cents 
for carrying a single letter 36 miles or less. For 
more than 36 and less than 80 miles it charged ten 
cents. From 80 to 150 miles the charge was 12 1-2 
cents, and from 150 to 400 miles, 18 1-2 cents. 
For all distances over 400 miles the uniform rate was 



152 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

25 cents. By a " single " letter was meant, so the 
department explained, one containing " one piece of 
paper." When two pieces of paper were inclosed, 
the charge was doubled ; when three pieces, it was 
tripled, and so on. A charge of one cent was made 
for carrying each copy of a newspaper 100 miles 
or less, and a cent and a half for more than 100 
miles. At that time there were about 80,000 miles 
of post office roads, and the mails were carried on 
stages about 21,000 miles. There were 5,240 post 
offices. John McLean was postmaster-general, at a 
salary of $4,000 a year. He had two assistants 
at $2,500 each; one chief clerk at $1,700, one 
bookkeeper at $1,300, twenty- two ordinary clerks at 
from $800 to $1,400 each, and two messengers, one 
at $700 and the other at $350. 



MARY FISHER'S STRANGE EXPERIENCES 

In 1656 Mary Fisher, a young English woman, 
landed in Boston, and was promptly taken before the 
court and convicted of being a Quakeress. The 
master of the vessel that brought her over was com- 
pelled to take her back to England. She then 
claimed that she was moved of the Lord to go to 
Turkey and warn the people of that country to flee 
from the wrath to come. When she reached Smyrna 
the English ambassador sent her back to Venice. 
Nothing discouraged, she set out again by land, and. 
after traveling 600 miles she reached Adrianople, 
where the Grand Vizier of Turkey was encamped 
with a great army She managed to get word to 
him that she had a message " from the great God 
to the great Turk." He immediately gave her an 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 153 

audience, listened to what she had to say, and treated 
her with the greatest respect. When she departed 
a guard was offered her, but she declined, and went 
on her way unaccompanied, reaching Constantinople 
in safety. Banished from Boston because of her 
religious belief, she was most courteously treated by 
the Mohammedans. 



JEFFERSON'S GREAT UNCONSTITU- 
TIONAL BARGAIN 

In 1803 President Jefferson asked Napoleon to 
sell the United States a strip of land at the mouth 
of the Mississippi river. Napoleon replied by mak- 
ing the astonishing proposition to sell the whole 
region west of the Mississippi for $15,000,- 
000. Jefferson was in a quandary. Here 
was an opportunity to secure an immense ter- 
ritory, vastly rich in its natural resources, at a 
mere fraction of its value. Yet it could not be done 
lawfully under the constitution, and Jefferson and 
his party were great sticklers for the constitution. 
There was no time for delay; whatever was done 
must be done quickly. The constitution could be 
amended, but that would take time, and the golden 
opportunity might escape forever. With the 
shrewd instinct of a keen business man Jefferson 
decided to close the bargain and trust the people 
to justify his act. His judgment was confirmed, not 
only by his own but by succeeding generations. At 
one stroke of the pen the area of the United States 
was almost doubled. It was a more momentous act 
than even the writing of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. 



154 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

THE EXTREMES OF FORTUNE 

Few careers have covered wider extremes of for- 
tune than did that of John of Cappadocia. He was 
a Roman officer of very high rank under the Emperor 
Justinian, in the sixth century. He was a very able 
man, and under his direction the finances of the gov- 
ernment flourished wonderfully. Incidentally he 
amassed a great fortune for himself. But he was 
very corrupt, and the revenues were raised " on the 
death of thousands, the poverty of millions, the ruins 
of cities, and the desolation of provinces." He lived 
most extravagantly, and indulged in all sorts of 
wicked practices. But his life of ostentatious prof- 
ligacy was suddenly changed into one of abject 
poverty. Though guilty of many crimes, he was ac- 
cused of one of which he seems to have been inno- 
cent, and was condemned to be scourged like the 
lowest of criminals. Nothing of his vast fortune 
was left him but one old ragged cloak, and it is said 
that for seven years he begged bread in the streets 
of cities that once had trembled at his name. 



WHEN WASHINGTON WAS ANGRY 

* In 1791 Gen. Arthur St. Clair was sent with a 
little army of 2,000 men to break the power of the 
Miami Indian confederacy. His camp was surprised 
by a force of Indians under Little Turtle. After 
three hours' desperate fighting St. Clair was com- 
pletely defeated, losing more than half his men. 
When news of the disaster reached President Wash- 
ington his usually calm and benignant spirit gave 
way to wrath. " Here," he exclaimed in a tempest 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 155 

of indignation, " on this very spot I took leave of 
him. ' You have your instructions,' I said, ' from 
the secretary of war. I will add but one word — Be- 
ware of a surprise ; you know how the Indians fight 
us.' And yet, to suffer that army to be cut to 
pieces, hacked, butchered, tomahawked, by a sur- 
prise — the very thing I guarded him against ! O 
God, O God, he's worse than a murderer ! How can 
he answer to his country ! The blood of the slain 
is upon him — the curse of widows and orphans — 
the curse of heaven." Then seating himself upon the 
sofa he was silent for a time; after which he rose 
and said to the man who had brought the message: 
" This must not go beyond this room. General St. 
Clair shall have justice. I looked hastily through 
the dispatches, saw the whole disaster but not the 
particulars. I will receive him without displeasure. 
I will hear him without prejudice. He shall have 
full justice." 



WHEN LONDONERS LOVED DARKNESS 

For several hundred years London sat in darkness 
on moonless nights. From 1416 on, however, the 
citizens were obliged to hang out candles on dark 
nights to illuminate the streets. This was enforced 
by act of parliament in 1661. In 1684 Edward 
Heming, the inventor of oil lamps, made a daring 
offer, which was, that for a proper consideration he 
would engage to place a light before every tenth 
door, on dark nights, from six p. m. till midnight.- 
His proposition was accepted, and he was given the 
exclusive right to light the streets as indicated for 
a term of years. But the scheme provoked a great 



156 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

uproar among the people. Some of them enthusi- 
astically applauded it, and hailed Heming as the 
greatest benefactor the city ever had. Thousands 
of others furiously denounced him and his scheme, 
and demanded that the contract be cancelled. Hem- 
ing held on, and in time the people became reconciled 
to having the streets lighted. In 1736 the city 
government assumed the responsibility. 



THE DISCOVEFER OF GOLD IN CAL- 
IFORNIA 

James W. Marshall was born in Hunterdon 
county, New Jersey, in 1812. While a young man 
he went west ; first to Indiana, and then to Illinois. 
In 1840 he moved again, this time to Kansas. In 
1844 he set out with an ox team for California, but 
changed his mind on the way and went to Oregon 
instead. Still he was not satisfied, and in 1845 
he emigrated to California, On January 19, 1848, 
he picked up a nugget of gold in the bed of a stream, 
and this act constituted the discovery of gold in 
California, Since then that state has yielded 
$1,500,000,000 in gold. James W. Marshall drifted 
about for thirty-seven years, doing no good at any- 
thing, and died in his cabin, alone, in 1855, without 
enough money to defray his very simple funeral ex- 
penses. 

HOW RUSSIA GOT SIBERIA 

In 1582 Yermak, a Cossack chieftain, with a band 
of warriors " chosen for their bravery rather than 
for their morality," set out to chastise and sub- 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 157 

due a powerful Tartar tribe east of the Ural moun- 
tains. When Czar Ivan IV. heard of it he was badly 
frightened, for he feared to stir up the fierce Tar- 
tars. He frantically sent orders for the expedition 
to return. But it was too late ; Yermak and his 
men had already crossed the mountains. When 
they approached the city of Sibir, the stronghold of 
the Tartar chief, they found an army thirty times 
as large as their own awaiting them. But they 
were far better equipped with arms and ammuni- 
tion than were the Tartars, and administered to 
them a crushing defeat. Sibir was captured, and 
became the nucleus of the expansion of the Russian 
empire in Asia, giving its name to the new country. 



WILLIAM DOCKVVRA AND CHEAP POSTAGE 

Strange as it may seem, before 1680 it was im- 
possible to mail a letter in the city of London with- 
out taking it to the general post office, in Lombard 
street. In that year William Dockwra, a merchant, 
put into operation a scheme for collecting and de- 
livering letters in any part of London for one 
penny. He established a number of receiving offices 
in various parts of the city. The scheme worked 
very well ; so well, in fact, that it provoked great 
hostility. The porters complained that it inter- 
fered with their interests, as it no doubt did, and 
tore down the placards announcing the scheme to 
the public. Some fanatics even denounced it as a 
popish plot. But it succeeded so well that it came 
near paying expenses the first year. Our present- 
day method of handling mail in large cities is not 
much, if any, better than that of Dockwra, and in 



158 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

one respect it is not as good, for he guaranteed to 
reimburse the sender when anything of value was 
lost while in the care of his employes. 



LAFAYETTE'S FIVE YEARS IN PRISON 

After General Lafayette's gallant services in be- 
half of the Americans during the War of the Revo- 
lution he returned to his native country, and in the 
early stages of the French Revolution became in- 
volved in the factional strife. During the Reign 
of Terror commissioners were sent to arrest him, 
but he escaped out of the country. He was cap- 
tured by an Austrian patrol, and delivered to the 
Prussian authorities. By them he was confined in 
a miserable dungeon at Magdeburg for a whole year, 
and then turned over to the Austrian government. 
He was taken to Olmutz and thrown into a dungeon 
whose walls were twelve feet thick. He was pro- 
vided with a bed of rotten straw, and a part of the 
time was chained to the wall. In spite of the re- 
monstrances of America, England, and liberty-lov- 
ing people everywhere, he was kept a prisoner here 
four long years. To every appeal the Austrian gov- 
ernment replied that his liberty was incompatible 
with the safety of Europe. Finally Napoleon 
threatened to crush the Austrian government to 
powder unless it released Lafayette. This had the 
desired effect, and he was released. When he 
thanked Napoleon, the latter replied, " I don't know 
what the devil you have done to the Austrians, but 
it cost them a mighty struggle to let you go." 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 159 

A YANKEE'S RETORT 

While the northwest boundary dispute was rag- 
ing between the United States and Great Britain 
the United States government appointed a commis- 
sion to audit the expenses of a certain Indian war 
in Oregon and Washington The commission 
made an official visit to Victoria, B. C, to audit the 
claims of the Hudson Bay company, which had been 
furnishing war supplies to the United States. With 
the commission were several United States naval 
officers, and in honor of the visitors Sir James Doug- 
las, governor of British Columbia, gave a banquet, 
which was also attended by various British officials 
and colonial dignitaries. During the banquet some- 
one unfortunately mentioned the boundary dispute, 
and the discussion immediately waxed warm. An 
American suggested that a compromise might be 
effected by which England would yield her claim to 
a certain territory. Sir James immediately arose, 
and in a dignified and pompous manner, said : " The 
British crown, sir, never alienates the soil." There- 
upon a member of the commission, a Yankee named 
Grover, arose and said : " You will please make an 
exception, sir, in favor of the United States, as we 
are under obligations to the British crown for most 
of the soil we have." " Pass the wine ; pass the 
wine," exclaimed Sir James ; " let us all take a 
drink.' 



HIS FACE WAS HIS FORTUNE 

One man in English history owed his success in 
life almost wholly to his good looks. It was George 
Villiers, first duke of Buckingham. James I. was 



160 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

wanting a private secretary, and when young Vil- 
liers applied for the position the King was much 
impressed with the beauty of his person and the 
gracefulness of his manners. He gave him the place, 
and that was the beginning of a great career. 
From that time to the end of James' reign the his- 
tory of England was in great part the personal 
history of George Villiers, the adventurer. First 
the cup-bearer ; in a few weeks knighted ; then made 
Gentleman of the Bedchamber and Knight of the 
Order of the Garter; then successively he was made 
a baron, a viscount, an earl, a marquis, and Lord 
High Admiral of England. All these titles and 
honors were showered upon him within a very few 
years. Of course he had some ability, especially in 
the way of political shreAvdness ; but his handsome 
face and his elegant bearing were his chief recom- 
mendations. 



AN INTERNATIONAL PIG 

A LITTLE pig was once the cause of a difficulty 
between the United States and Great Britain, which 
for a time threatened war, and was finally settled 
by the Emperor of Germany. In the Gulf of 
Georgia, north of Puget Sound, is a little island 
named San Juan. In early days two men lived on 
this island, an American and an Englishman. Each 
was the owner of some hogs, and one day the Eng- 
lishman shot one of the American's pigs. A dispute 
followed, and they decided to carry the matter to 
court. But which court, English or American? 
According to the northwest boundary settlement in 
1846, the forty-ninth parallel was to be followed 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 161 

westward to the straits, when the channel was to be 
followed. But now the question rose, on which side 
of the island did the channel run, both routes being 
used? Thus the matter assumed an international 
aspect, and soon troops of both nations occupied 
the island. For a time hostilities seemed imminent, 
but wiser counsels prevailed, and the question was 
referred to the German emperor, who decided in 
favor of the United States. 



TROUBLES OF THE BANK OF ENGLAND 

The Bank of England, " the greatest monetary- 
establishment in the world," has had its troubles, 
notwithstanding its great financial strength. It has 
passed through many perils. At various times its 
notes have been at a heavy discount, its credit has 
been assailed, it has been threatened with impeach- 
ment, and it has been attacked by rioters. The first 
" run " on the bank occurred in 1707. Other panics 
or runs occurred in 1745, 1797 and 1825. In 1832 
the Duke of Wellington was unpopular, and four 
men placarded the walls of London with the words, 
" To stop the Duke, Go for Gold." Nobody knew 
exactly what it meant, but it produced a tremendous 
run on the bank. At one time the bank lost £320,- 
000, or almost $1,500,000, through the for- 
geries of one man, and still more at another time, by 
the forgeries of another man. 



A QUEER LITTLE ENGLISH KING 

When Sir Robert Walpole awakened George Au- 
gustus, prince of Wales, out of a sound sleep to in- 
form him that his father, George L, was dead, the 



162 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

prince exclaimed : " Dot is von pig lie." Of all 
the monarchs who have sat upon the throne of Eng- 
land, George II. was perhaps the most ridiculous. 
He was a fat little Dutchman with a slender intellect 
and an overpowering sense of his own importance. 
Had he been a private individual he would have been 
looked upon with contempt. His morals were very 
loose — " a dull little man with low tastes," Thack- 
eray calls him. But he had an excellent wife, who 
was far superior to him in every way. He did not 
know it, but in most things he yielded her absolute 
obedience. These lines were often quoted in those 
days: 
" You may strut, dapper George, but 'twill all be in 

vain; 
We know 'tis Queen Caroline, not you, that reign." 
He had little sympathy with the English people, 
and was always going back to Hanover. At one 
time he remained away from England two whole 
years, but was not greatly missed. 



BACHELORS RULED OUT 

In 1794 the moderate Republicans of France, 
who wished to establish a republican form of govern- 
ment, held a convention and prepared a new consti- 
tution to be voted on by the people. In some re- 
spects it was very good, and much superior to any 
which had preceded it. It provided that the legis- 
lative powers should be committed to two bodies, as 
in the United States. The higher one, correspond- 
ing to the United States senate, was to be called 
" The Council of the Ancients." It was to consist 
of 250 members, each of whom was to be at least 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 163 

40 years of age, and a married man or a widower. 
An unmarried man was not considered equal to the 
responsibility of being a member of this weighty 
body. The second or lower body was to consist of 
500 members, each of whom must be at least 30 years 
of age. There was no restriction in regard to being 
married or unmarried, however. In the rapid whirl 
of events this constitution was soon lost sight of, 
along with a great many other things, and the 
French bachelors escaped the impending humilia- 
tion. 



GENERAL PIKE'S TRAGIC DEATH 

During the War of 1812 an expedition was or- 
ganized by General Henry Dearborn for the capture 
of the British forts on Lake Ontario. The first one 
attacked was Fort York, where Toronto now 
stands. The attacking column was led by Gen. 
Zebulon M. Pike. The outer battery had been taken 
by assault and the guns of the main battery silenced. 
While waiting for the garrison to raise the white 
flag General Pike seated himself on a log and be- 
gan talking with a British prisoner. Instead of 
running up the white flag as expected, the British 
commander ordered his men to retreat, and then 
had the powder magazine blown up. Fifty-two 
American soldiers were killed by the explosion, and 
180 others wounded. A huge stone fell upon Gen- 
eral Pike, breaking his back, and he died a few 
hours later. Thus perished one of our great ex- 
plorers, the discoverer of Pike's Peak, at the early 
age of thirty-four. 



164 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

WAS GENERAL HUT.L A COWARD 

A GALLANT officer, taking part in nine great bat- 
tles ; at one time leading a desperate charge in which 
half his followers were killed ; twice promoted for 
bravery ; commended by his superior officers, includ- 
ing Washington, and publicly thanked by congress 
■ — such was the record of General William Hull at 
the close of the Revolutionary war. Branded as a 
coward ; accused of being a traitor ; almost univer- 
sally censured ; tried by court-martial and sentenced 
to be shot — such was his record at the close of the 
War of 1812. It is a sad story. As commander 
of the army of the Northwest he surrendered the 
fort at Detroit without firing a gun, when every 
one expected him to make a gallant defense. The 
indignation was intense. He claimed that the fall 
of the fort was inevitable, and that in surrendering 
it when he did he saved hundreds of lives. The 
president pardoned him, in consideration of his 
age and his past services. For many years the feel- 
ing against him was very bitter, but historians now 
generally agree that while he surrendered with un- 
soldierly alacrity, the odds were greatly against him, 
and the blame must rest as much with the adminis- 
tration as with him. 



WASHINGTON A WEALTHY MAN 

General Washington would accept no pay for 
his services in the Revolutionary war. This was 
very commendable, yet it was not as great a sacri- 
fice for him as it would have been for his fellow of- 
ficers. He was a very wealthy man for his day. 
His will, dated July 9, 1799, was accompanied by a 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 165 

schedule of his property, with valuations In detail, 
all prepared by his own hand. According to this 
schedule he was the owner of more than 50,000 acres 
of land in various parts of the country, besides nu- 
merous city and town lots, considerable personal 
property and some bank stock. Of course much of the 
land was not very valuable at the time, yet accord- 
ing to his estimate his estate was worth $530,000. 
This probably was considerably below its real value. 
He came near being a millionaire ; something rare in 
those days. 



PETTY CRIMES PUNISHABLE BY DEATH 

In 1806 an English writer published a list of 
fifty-six crimes that were punishable by death In 
that country. A large percentage of them were 
what are now considered minor offenses ; yet upon 
conviction of the offenders the judges were obliged 
to pass sentence of death. At one session of the 
Old Bailey court, in London, the term ending 
September 4, 1801, the following convictions were 
made: Two men for entering a dwelling house in 
the daytime and stealing a cotton counterpane; one 
man for stealing a linen cloth ; two men for bur- 
glary ; one man for stealing a pair of stockings ; an- 
other for stealing six silver spoons ; another for re- 
turning from transportation ; another for stealing 
a horse ; another for stealing a blue coat ; two men 
for stealing four teaspoons and a gold snuff box; 
one man for stealing a lamb, and another for steal- 
ing two lambs. It Is not recorded that all these 
were hanged, but some of them undoubtedly were. 
Probably the most extraordinary case on record Is 
that of an English boy who was sentenced to death 



166 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

for polishing a six-pence and trying to pass it for 
a shilling. 



IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT 

In 1796 a man named Miller was incarcerated in 
Queen's prison, London, for a debt which it is doubt- 
ful he ever owed. Forty-seven years afterwards 
he was still there, being at that time seventy-six 
years old. In the debtor's prison at Sheffield John 
Howard found a cutler working at his trade who 
had been imprisoned for 30 cents. The costs of his 
trial were about ,$5, and this sum he had been for 
several years trying to earn in prison. He was 
confined in the same department with thieves and 
murderers. Imprisonment for debt was abolished in 
England in 1869, except in certain cases of de- 
fault, etc. It was abolished in Ireland in 1872 ; in 
Scotland in 1880; in France in 1867; in Belgium in 
1871 ; in Italy in 1877, and in Switzerland and Nor- 
way in 1874. There is now practically no such 
thing as imprisonment for debt in the United States. 



NAPOLEON'S OPINION OF WASHINGTON 

In May, 1798, a party of young Americans who 
were making a tour of Europe happened to be at 
Toulon, France, just as Napoleon was embarking 
with his army for his campaign in Egypt. They 
sought an introduction to the great general whose 
wonderful military exploits had already made his 
name known throughout the civilized world. After 
the customary salutations Napoleon inquired, " And 
how fares your countryman, the great Washing- 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 167 

ton?" "He Is very well," replied the spokesman 
for the young men. " Ah, gentlemen," rejoined Na- 
poleon, " Washington can never be otherwise than 
well. The measure of his fame Is full. Posterity 
will talk of him with reverence as the founder of a 
great empire when my name shall be lost In the vor- 
tex of revolutions." 



A LAWYER'S SEVERE PUNISHMENT 

In May, 1621, an obscure English lawyer, named 
Floyd, was accused of saying that the king of Bo- 
hemia had no right to his title, and that his wife 
ought to come home to her father. For these ter- 
rible words he was arraigned before the House of 
Commons, found guilty and sentenced to the pillory. 
King Charles told the members they had exceeded 
their authority In passing a censure without con- 
sulting the upper house, and anyway they ought to 
be attending to more important matters. But the 
king's Interference proved unfortunate for the poor 
lawyer, for the House of Lords then took up his 
case, fined him £5,000, and sentenced him to be 
whipped, branded on the face and imprisoned. 



THE UNFORTUNATE DOCTOR DODD 

In 1776 Rev. William Dodd, LL.D., a popular 
minister, at one time chaplain to the king, and 
author of many religious books, including a com- 
mentary on the Bible, found himself In great finan- 
cial straits and forged a bond for £4,200. He 
was detected, tried, found guilty and sentenced to 
death, notwithstanding he returned three-fourths 



168 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

of the money and guaranteed to make good the rest. 
Strong efforts were made to secure his pardon, men 
of high standing working night and day to that 
end. One petition alone contained 23,000 signa- 
tures. But the authorities were obstinate and re- 
fused to yield. George III. wavered for a time, but 
finally declined to interfere and save the life of his 
old chaplain. The Doctor was confined in Old 
Bailey prison, and on June 6, 1778, all the other 
convicts being assembled in the prison chapel, he 
preached his own funeral sermon, taking for his text 
Acts XV., 23. Three weeks later he was hanged, 
and with him a young man who had been sentenced 
to death for stealing " two half-guineas and about 
seven shillings." 



THE CITY OF SHORT BREAD 

Not many people of to-day would recognize the 
metropolis of Missouri by the name " Pain Court," 
yet that name was quite generally applied to St. 
Louis in its early days. Leclede, who founded it in 
1764, loyally called it after his French sovereign, 
Louis XV. ; but the people of the other villages up 
and down the Mississippi and along the Ohio and 
the Wabash derisively nicknamed it " Pain Court." 
It appears that the French settlers of St. Louis neg- 
lected agriculture, and devoted nearly all their time 
to hunting and trapping and trading with the In- 
dians. On this account, and because a considerable 
garrison was maintained at the fort, provisions were 
scarcer and higher priced than they were in the 
other villages. The people of the latter, who fre- 
quently came here to trade, took note of this, es- 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 169 

pecially the high price and scarcity of bread, and 
dubbed the place " Pain Court," which in French 
signifies short or scant bread. 



HOW BOSTON VILLAGE REGULATED 
WAGES 

The good people of Boston village were much 
dissatisfied with what they considered the excessive 
wages demanded by workmen, so the general court 
decided to make an example of one Edward Palmer, 
a carpenter. He had been employed to erect stocks 
for the punishment of offenders. Having com- 
pleted the machine, he sent in his bill, amounting 
to about $8.00. As he doubtless furnished the tim- 
ber, and probably put in at least two days' labor, 
this charge does not seem to us unreasonable. But 
the court decided it was exorbitant, fined him five 
pounds (about $22.00), and sentenced him to spend 
one hour in the machine he had made. The punish- 
ment seems out of all proportion to the offense, but 
the Puritans had a curious way of looking at these 
things. 



A SUCCESSFUL OLD SCHOOLMASTER 

A GOOD illustration of how a man of ordinary 
ability may attain success by making the most of his 
opportunities is found in Alcuin, an English school- 
master of the eighth century. When returning from 
a visit to Rome he fell under the notice of the Em- 
peror Charlemagne. It so happened that the em- 
peror was looking for a principal for his royal 
school, and he offered Alcuin the place. Alcuin ac- 



170 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

ceptod, and this was the beginning of a great career, 
especially for a schoolmaster. It was a heavy bur- 
den Charlemagne imposed upon him — that he 
should make the Franks familiar with the Latin 
language, create schools, and do everything he could 
to revive learning. But he accepted the task will- 
ingly, worked faithfully, and succeeded far beyond 
his own expectations. His influence on the intellec- 
tual development of Europe can hardly be over-esti- 
mated. It may almost be said that the educational 
development of the modern world dates from him 
and his school. Yet all accounts agree that he was 
a man of only ordinary ability. He succeeded by 
keeping everlastingly at it. 



A SURPRISE FOR GARIBALDI 

After Garibaldi's great work of re-uniting Italy 
was accomplished, his mind turned with longing to 
his little island home in Caprera. He had been ab- 
sent for two years, fighting the battles of his coun- 
try, and he sought rest and quiet in his little cot- 
tage among the rocks. When he approached his 
home everything looked strange to him. He saw no 
object that he could recognize. Instead of the 
rough and tangled farm he had left, there were ele- 
gant grounds, splendid roads, lawns, gardens, 
flowers, shrubbery and paths everywhere. In the 
place of the humble cottage he had left stood a 
beautiful villa, all furnished spick and span within 
and without. He was very much astonished, and 
could not imagine who or what had done all this, 
until in one of the rooms he came upon a full-length 
portrait of King Victor Emmanuel. Then he under- 
stood. 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 171 

JOHN KAY AND HIS FLYING SHUTTLE 

In 1733 John Kay of Yorkshire, England, took 
out a patent for a " flying shuttle," which was the 
most important improvement ever made in the hand 
loom. This invention made it possible for the 
weaver to sit still and by pulling two cords alter- 
nately throw the shuttle to and fro. One man could 
therefore weave broadcloth instead of its requiring 
two as before. The other weavers of England were 
quick to make use of the invention, but were not so 
ready to pay a royalty to the inventor. They 
formed a " Shuttle Club," for the purpose of defend- 
ing infringements of the patent, and Kay was soon 
involved in numerous lawsuits. At one time a mob 
broke into his house and destroyed nearly every- 
thing he had, he himself barely escaping with his 
life. He profited very little by his invention, and is 
said to have died in a foreign land, in poverty and 
obscurity. 



WHERE THE SPANISH KINGS ARE 
BURIED 

Twenty-seven miles from Madrid, on a bleak 
height surrounded by a sterile and gloomy wil- 
derness, stands the Escorial, one of the most remark- 
able buildings in Europe. It is 786 feet long and 
623 feet wide, with tall towers at the angles. It 
comprises at once a convent, a church, a palace and 
a mausoleum. On August 10, 1557, the Spaniards 
gained a great victory over the French at St. 
Quentin, and the Spanish king, Philip II., had the 
building erected in commemoration of the event. As 
the battle occurred on St. Laurence's day, he had 



172 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

the building designed to resemble the famous grid- 
iron on which St. Laurence suffered martyrdom by 
being roasted to death. The work was begun in 
1563, and continued for more than twenty years. 
The building contains a vast number of treasures — 
paintings, sculptures, manuscripts, etc. Among them 
is a life-size figure of Christ on the Cross, done in 
ivory by Benvenuto Cellini. As It stands to-day, the 
Escorial and its contents represent an outlay of more 
than $10,000,000. Here lie the bodies of all the 
Spanish kings since the Emperor Charles V., except 
Philip V. and Ferdinand VI. 



THE RAGGED SCHOOLS OF ENGLAND 

Juvenile delinquency reached its maximum in 
England about the middle of the last century. Dur- 
ing the five years ending 1842 one-third of 
those committed for trial in the courts of England 
were under twenty years of age. In London alone 
it was estimated there were 30,000 children under 
sixteen who depended on thieving for their existence. 
In 1839 a Scotch gardener living in London con^ 
eluded he would do something for these " Arabs of 
civilization," and set up a school, in a stable, for 
the purpose of reclaiming some of them if pos- 
sible. The excellent results obtained attracted at- 
tention, and many other people became interested 
in the welfare of these outcasts. This was the be- 
ginning of the " ragged schools," which now form a 
prominent feature of elementary education in Eng- 
land. Some idea of their importance may be gained 
from the statement that while there are about 800,- 
000 children under the care of the London school 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 173 

board, 150,000 others are handled by these volun- 
tary " ragged schools." 



HIS HAT WAS HIS FORTUNE 

In the year 1680 William Murdock, an English 
millwright, was traveling along a country road one 
day, footsore and tired. Coming to a factory, he 
stopped at the door and asked for work of some 
kind. The proprietor was about to turn him away 
when he noticed that he wore an oval-shaped hat. 
This was something new in the way of headgear, and 
it excited the proprietor's curiosity. " Where did 
you get it?" he asked. "I just turned it on my 
lathe," answered Murdock. " But it's oval, not 
round," said the proprietor, " and lathes turn 
things round." " Well," answered Murdock, " I 
just geared the machine another gait to suit me." 
He had indeed invented the oval lathe and didn't 
know it. The proprietor saw that a man who could 
turn out an oval hat with a lathe was too valuable 
a man to lose sight of, and gave him employment. 
The hat proved to be the foundation of both fame 
and fortune. Murdock also constructed the first 
wheeled vehicle propelled by steam in England. 



JEFFERSON'S MOUNTAIN OF SALT 

While President Jefferson was negotiating with 
France for the purchase of Louisiana Territory he 
transmitted to congress one very remarkable docu- 
ment. It was an abstract he had prepared of cer- 
tain papers relating to the territory, and pictured 
the country in the most glowing colors. It told 



174. CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

of a tribe of Indians of gigantic stature; of bluffs 
300 feet high, faced with stone and carved by na- 
ture into what appeared like a multitude of an- 
tique towers ; of a vast prairie country whose soil 
was too rich for the growth of trees. But most 
marvelous of all was an immense mountain of pure 
salt. This was said to be located about 1,000 miles 
north of New Orleans and near the Mississippi 
river, and to be 180 miles long and 45 miles wide, 
with no trees or shrubs on it. All glittering white 
it stood, and from its base issued great streams of 
pure salt water. Jefferson had been misled by the 
fairy tales of travelers. His political opponents 
had no end of fun with him in after years about his 
" salt mountain." 



A FORTUNATE ACCIDENT 

The wife of William East, an English paper 
manufacturer, helped him in the factory, and one 
day she accidentally let a blue bag fall into one of 
the vats of pulp. She told no one about it and the 
workmen were astonished when they saw the peculiar 
color of the paper from that vat. The proprietor 
was more than frightened, he was angry ; for he 
thought it meant a considerable pecuniary loss. He 
could not discover the cause of the mishap, and the 
paper with a blue tinge was stored in an out-of-the- 
way place. Four years afterward it was taken out, 
and the manufacturer shipped it to his agent in 
London, with instructions to sell it for what he 
could get. Some days later he was astonished to 
learn that his agent had sold the paper at a con- 
siderable advance on the market price, and wanted 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 175 

more of the same kind. He was at his wits' end, 
for he had not the secret. Then his wife came for- 
ward and told about the accident. Orders for the 
blue-tinted paper continued to pour in, and the fac- 
tory was unable to supply the demand. 



VACILLATING FRENCH NEWSPAPERS 

In the year 1814 Napoleon was banished to the 
Isle of Elba. In a few months he escaped and re- 
turned to France. His return was hailed with 
great rejoicing by his friends and greatly regretted 
by his enemies. The Paris newspapers appear to 
have been very severe on him at first, but changed 
their attitude as he drew nearer and nearer the 
capital. On March 9 they announced : " The Can- 
nibal has escaped from his den." On the 10th: 
" The Corsican Ogre has just landed at Cape Juan." 
On the 11th : " The Tiger has arrived at Gap." On 
the 12th : " The Monster passed the night at Gren- 
oble." On the 13th: "The Tyrant has crossed 
Lyons." On the 14th: "The Usurper is directing 
his course toward Dijon, but the brave and loyal 
Burgundians have risen in a body and they sur- 
round him on all sides." On the 18th: " Bonaparte 
is sixty leagues from the capital ; he has had skill 
enough to escape from the hands of his pursuers." 
On the 19th : " Bonaparte advances rapidly, but he 
will never enter Paris." On the 20th : " To-morrow 
Napoleon will be under our ramparts." On the 
21st: " The Emperor is at Fontainebleau." On the 
22d: "His Imperial Majesty last evening made his 
entrance into the Palace of the Tuileries, amidst 



176 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

the joyous acclamations of an adoring and faithful 
people." 



THE TREADMILL AS A PUNISHMENT 

The treadmill is a Chinese invention, but in 1818 
William Cubbitt of England adapted the idea in 
making a machine for employing prisoners usefully. 
It was widely adopted and extensively used for 
some years in the English prisons. In 1823 the So- 
ciety for the Improvement of Discipline in Prisons 
published a book with elaborate illustrations de- 
scribing the treadmill and setting forth its advan- 
tages as a medium of prison discipline. At first the 
prisoners were required to tread the mill nine hours 
a day, which meant a climb of about 12,000 feet. 
This was found too severe, and the hours were re- 
duced to six and the climb to about 8,000 feet a day. 
The power thus generated was usually employed in 
grinding corn, drawing water, etc. Public opinion 
has gradually brought about the abandonment of 
the treadmill as a punishment for prisoners. In 
1895 there were thirty-nine still in use in English 
prisons, in 1901 only thirteen, and there are none 
at present. This form of administering discipline 
to prisoners was never introduced in this country. 



SOME OLD-TIME FASHIONS 

In the fourteenth century it was the fashion to 
carry silver toothpicks suspended from the neck by 
a chain. About the end of the seventeenth century 
magnetic toothpicks were used, to prevent pain in 
the teeth, eyes and ears. In the latter part of the 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 177 

eighteenth century the women of England wore hoop 
petticoats so large that a woman wearing one oc- 
cupied the space of six men. At one time the cus- 
tom of dotting the face with black patches shaped 
like suns, stars, crosses, hearts, etc., was very prev- 
alent in England. Some of the ladies of the court 
of Louis XV. wore moleskin eyebrows. At one time 
all English doctors were supposed to carry gold- 
headed canes as an emblem of authority. During 
the reigns of William III., Anne and George I., in 
England, it was illegal for a tailor to make or a man 
to wear clothes with any other kind of buttons than 
brass. 



BROTHER JONATHAN 

The name " Brother Jonathan " as applied to 
America or to American citizens was formerly in 
much more general use than it is now. It origi- 
nated during the War of the Revolution. After 
Washington had been appointed commander of the 
army he went to Massachusetts to get matters in 
shape there. He found a great scarcity of ammuni- 
tion and other necessities, and for a time it seemed 
almost impossible to devise adequate means for the 
public safety. Jonathan Trumbull was then gover- 
nor of Connecticut, a man of perfect integrity and 
great common-sense. Washington had implicit 
confidence in Trumbull's judgment, so in his per- 
plexity concerning the Massachusetts situation he 
remarked, " We must consult Brother Jonathan 
about this." He did so, and the governor was of 
great assistance to him. After that, when diffi- 
culties arose, it became common to say, " We will 



178 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

consult Brother Jonathan about this," and in time 
" Brother Jonathan " became a synonym, so to 
speak, of the United States. Governor Trumbull 
looked the part of Uncle Sam. He was tall, gaunt, 
sharp-featured and long-legged, and usually wore 
striped lindsey-woolsey trousers a trifle too short. 



THE REWARDS OF TREASON 

Benedict Arnold fared well at the hands of the 
English after he turned traitor to the American 
cause. He received in return for his treason a com- 
mission as brigadier-general in the British army, 
and thereafter he fought against his former com- 
rades. When he went to England he was presented 
with $30,000, and given a pension of $2,500 a year 
for his wife and one of $500 a year for each of his 
children. Some time later the king gave him a 
large grant of land in Canada. He remained in the 
British army until his death, twenty years after his 
desertion of the American cause. But not all his 
rewards were of a pleasant nature. Of course the 
American people execrated him, and even his fellow 
British officers despised him. In avenging some of 
their insults he became involved in a duel, fell into 
debt, lost his fortune, and ended his days in pov- 
erty. It is said that he died in the uniform of an 
American major-general, which he had preserved. 



WHEN BENEDICT ARNOLD WAS LOYAL 

In the early days of the Revolutionary war one 
of Washington's most trusted generals laid before 
him a plan to invade Canada by way of the Maine 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 179 

wilderness and capture Quebec by surprise. Wash- 
ington approved, the project was undertaken, and 
came astonishingly near succeeding. The little 
army was composed of about 650 poorly clad men, 
with barely 400 good muskets among them, and only 
five rounds of ammunition to each man. After a 
march of almost incredible hardships through 200 
miles of what is to this day a mountainous wilder- 
ness, the little army climbed the cliffs and boldly de- 
manded the surrender of the city. But it was in 
no condition to enforce its demand, for the place 
was strongly fortified and garrisoned by 1,900 men. 
So the little band withdrew up the river a few miles, 
where it encountered a detachment of British sol- 
diers. A sharp fight ensued, during which the 
leader of the Americans was badly wounded. Had 
he been killed then and there his name would have 
gone down in history as that of patriot and hero. 
But he recovered, and his name is now the synonym 
for treason in this country — Benedict Arnold. 
Had his bold expedition succeeded, it probably 
would have united Canada to the thirteen colonies, 
and changed the whole course of the war. 



THE FRENCH IN THE AMERICAN 
REVOLUTION 

France contributed more than 47,000 men to the 
American cause during the War of the Revolution, 
including all the officers and men of sixty-two naval 
vessels and thirteen regiments, who at one time or 
another cruised in our waters or landed on our 
shores. But they did not render very effective 
service. They came and went at their own will. 



180 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

The greatest number ashore at any one time 
was 8,400, and they took part in only two impor- 
tant battles. Savannah and Yorktown. At Savan- 
nah they lost 637 men and at Yorktown, 186. 
Their services were more than offset by the Germans 
who fought with England. The latter numbered 
29,867, of whom only 17,313 returned. They took 
part in nine important battles, and were always sub- 
ject to the orders of the British commanders. In a 
financial way French assistance was much more valu- 
able and effective. By the close of 1781 the French 
king had advanced to America the sum of 20,000,- 
000 francs, exclusive of the cost of maintaining the 
French army and navy in America. 



THE HATED HIRED HESSIANS 

" Hired Hessians " were much despised by the 
Americans during the Revolutionary war. The em- 
ployment of mercenaries, or foreign soldiers who 
fight for pay, was formerly much more common than 
it is now. During the American Revolution Eng- 
land had much difficulty in recruiting her armies, 
so she made arrangements with various petty Ger- 
man rulers by which they undertook to furnish 
troops, to serve under their own officers in America. 
For each soldier killed England agreed to pay $35, 
and for each one wounded, $12. She was also to 
pay all expenses, and in addition pay the Landgrave 
of Hesse $500,000 per annum and the other petty 
princes in proportion. This practice was looked 
upon by the Americans as degrading and infamous, 
and they took particular delight in punishing the 
hired soldiers whenever opportunity offered. The 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 181 

total number of such troops brought over to America 
during the Revolution was 29,867, of whom about 
1,200 were killed or mortally wounded, 6,354 died 
from other causes, about 5,000 deserted, and 17,- 
313 returned to their European homes at the end 
of the war. 



A LEARNED KING 

Frederick II. of Germany was a highly educated 
man, and unusually intelligent. He was a perfect 
master of six languages. He was a zoologist and 
an ornithologist, understanding the structure and 
habits of animals and birds. He was the author of 
a book on falconry. He understood medicine, and 
was a practical surgeon. He was a liberal patron 
of learning, and founded the University of Naples. 
In addition to all this he possessed rare literary 
taste, and his culture and refinement mark him an 
exception among kings. 



OUR DEBT TO SPAIN 

Americans sometimes forget how much we owe to 
Spain. Through Columbus, she discovered America. 
Through Balboa, she discovered the Pacific ocean. 
Through Magellan, she demonstrated that America 
is a continent. Through De Soto, she discovered 
the Mississippi river. Before the year 1600 Eng- 
land had tried to settle America, and failed. France 
had tried the same thing, and failed. In 1600 
Spain was the only power that disputed with the 
red man the possession of the American continent. 
But after that she failed to maintain her advantage. 



182 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

She had introduced the slave trade, and bigotry 
and intolerance characterized all her actions. More 
enlightened nations forged ahead, and she gradually 
lost her territory, her prestige, her glory and her 
power in the new world. 



A ROMAN EMPEROR'S INHUMANITY 

As an exhibition of cool and exquisite vengeance 
nothing in all history exceeds in horror that taken 
by Basil II., a Roman emperor of the eleventh cen- 
tury, on 15,000 captured Bulgarian soldiers. They 
had been guilty of nothing worse than defending 
their country against the invasion of his army, yet 
he had their eyes put out, leaving, however, a single 
eye to one of each hundred men, in order that he 
might lead his blind companions back to their Bul- 
garian king. It is said that when they appeared 
before that monarch he was so overcome by the 
horror of it that he died within a few days. Basil 
died at sixty-seven, " dismissed," says the historian, 
" with the blessings of the clergy and the curses of 
the people." 



THE ORIGIN OF TAMMANY 

The Society of Tammany, or Columbian Order, 
was formed in New York city in 1789, and has been 
a power in city, state and national politics ever since. 
Its primary object was to offset the influ- 
ence of the Society of Cincinnati. The latter was 
formed by the surviving officers of the Revolution, 
and as its constitution provided that its member- 
ship should be perpetuated by the eldest sons of 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 183 

members, it was regarded by many as too aristo- 
cratic in its tendencies. The Society of Tammany 
professed to be far more democratic in its char- 
acter. It took its name from a noted chief of the 
Delaware Indians. Its chief founder was William 
Mooney, a native-born American of Irish extrac- 
tion. The society is nominally a charitable as- 
sociation, fraternal in its nature, and quite distinct 
from the general committee of the Tammany De- 
mocracy< It takes a very prominent part in poli- 
tics, nevertheless. It claims to have outlived four- 
teen national parties. Aaron Burr was a prominent 
member of Tammany in its earlier years. 



A CITY CONQUERED BY HUNGER 

There are few sieges in history more memorable 
than that of the little city of La Rochelle, France. 
Here the Huguenots made their last important 
stand. There were 28,000 inhabitants, half of them 
females and only half the males armed men. Yet 
for fifteen months they held in check the combined 
army and fleet of Louis XIII. When they chose 
Jean Guiton mayor at the beginning of the siege, 
he said to them : " You know not what you do in 
choosing me. Understand me well, that with me 
there is no talk of surrender. Whoever breathes a 
word of it I will kill him." The city was reduced, 
not by sudden assault, or fire, or sword, or cannon, 
but by slow famine. Everything was eaten, even 
down to leather, which was boiled. A cat sold for 
45 livres. Not until half the population had per- 
ished from hunger, and scarcely 150 of the garrison 



184 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

remained alive, did the survivors consent to surren- 
der. 



A COSTLY BOOK 

Strolling through the Bodleian library one day, 
Lord Kingsborough, known in private life as Ed- 
ward King, happened to notice an ancient Mex- 
ican manuscript. He became so interested in it that 
he resolved to devote his life to the study of Mex- 
ican antiquities. For ten years he labored faith- 
fully, and in 1831 the results were published in a 
monumental work of seven immense volumes, almost 
two feet square. In these volumes are printed, in 
vivid colors, facsimiles of the ancient Mexican paint- 
ings that are preserved in the great libraries and 
museums of Europe. In this work he had a definite 
object, to prove the ancient settlement of Mexico 
by a branch of the Israelites. But it proved to be 
his undoing. He spent nearly $150,000 on it, and 
became heavily involved in debt. He was thrown 
into prison on account of this debt, and died there 
at the age of forty-two. 



A FLEET CAPTURED BY CAVALRY 

In 1794, when France was arrayed in arms 
against the rest of Europe, the Dutch fleet became 
ice-bound in the Zuyder Zee, which forms the har- 
bor of Amsterdam. A body of French cavalry 
under General Pichegru surrounded it, and gallop- 
ing across the ice, furiously attacked the great ships 
and captured them. Had the Dutch commanders 
been as smart as Napoleon the result might have 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 185 

been otherwise. At one time when he saw his adver- 
saries posted on a frozen lake he brought his ar- 
tillery to bear and shot the ice from under them, 
letting them into the water. 



THE STAR CHAMBER COURT 

At one time the " Star Chamber " was almost 
all-powerful in England. It was so called because 
its sessions were held in a large chamber whose ceil- 
ing was decorated with stars. Its sessions were 
held in secret. It could settle cases without juries 
and inflict torture at will, though it could not im- 
pose the death penalty. This court fined the Bishop 
of Lincoln £5,000 for calling Archbishop Laud " the 
great Leviathan." It fined John Lilburn, the agi- 
tator, £500, sentenced him to the pillory, and to be 
whipped " from Fleet street to Westminster." The 
court was abolished by act of parliament in 1641. 
" Star Chamber " proceedings of any kind have 
never been popular in America. 



THE BRAVEST ENGLISHMAN 

At a critical moment during the battle of Water- 
loo the success of the allies seemed to depend upon 
the instantaneous closing of the gates of the village 
of Hougomont. They were promptly closed in the 
most courageous manner and in the very nick of 
time, by Sir James Macdonnell. In after years an 
English gentleman willed the sum of £500 " to the 
bravest man in England." The executors of the 
estate appealed to the Duke of Wellington, who told 
them the story of Sir James Macdonnell, and said, 



186 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

" He is the man whom you should pay the £500." 
But when they went to Sir James he said, " I can- 
not claim all the credit for closing the gates of 
Hougomont. My sergeant, John Graham, seeing 
with me the importance of closing the gates, rushed 
forward to help me, and by your leave I will share 
the legacy with hira." 



A QUEEN WHO DIED OF A BROKEN HEART 

On April 8, 1795, Prince George of England, af- 
terward George IV., was married to Catherine of 
Brunswick, his cousin. It was not a love match, but 
one of convenience, arranged by the prince's father. 
Young George consented to the union because his 
debts, which were stupendous, would thereby be liqui- 
dated. He had no love for his bride, and left her at 
the end of a year. He tried to secure a divorce, 
but parliament would not grant it. Public sym- 
pathy was largely with her, as the prince was con- 
sidered very much of a scapegrace. When he was 
crowned king, in 1821, although she had received 
no summons, Catherine went in state to Westminster 
Abbey, and demanded to be crowned with him. On 
being refused admission she returned home and in 
nine days died, it is believed, of a broken heart. 



THE UNFORTUNATE MAROONS 

Several centuries ago the Spaniards brought a 
large number of African negroes to the island of 
Jamaica as slaves. When the English took posses- 
sion of the island, in 1665, these slaves, being de- 
serted by their masters, fled to the mountains. Here 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 187 

they lived a fierce, wild life, and became in time a 
terrible scourge to the English settlers. It was a 
vexing problem what should be done about them, 
and all the time they were increasing in numbers. 
Finally, in 1738, an agreement was made with them 
by which they secured their independence, and they 
maintained it for 140 years. But the English at 
last determined to get rid of them altogether, and 
imported 100 bloodhounds for this purpose. 
Hunted down like wild animals and hemmed in on 
every side, they were forced to submit. Only about 
600 escaped death, and these were transported from 
the burning climate of Jamaica to the bleak shores 
of Nova Scotia, where they soon perished miser- 
ably. 



CAPE GOOD HOPE DISCOVERED BY 
MISTAKE 

For many centuries the need of a water route 
from Europe to India was keenly felt. Portuguese 
navigators were especially active in search of one, 
and in 1487, five years before Columbus set out on 
his voyage of discovery, Bartholomew Diaz rounded 
Cape of Good Hope, at the southern extremity of 
Africa. He did not know it at the time, being too 
far out at sea. When the crew discovered they were 
on the wrong side of the mainland they became 
panic-stricken, and insisted on returning at once. 
They carried their point, and soon caught sight of 
the cape. Thus it came that Diaz discovered the 
Cape of Good Hope while sailing homeward. If he 
had had a bolder crew, and had kept on sailing east- 
ward, he might have reached India and thus solved 



188 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

the problem he had in hand. Ten years later Vasco 
da Gama, another Portuguese navigator, also 
doubled the cape. His crew was likewise cowardly, 
and rebelled ; but he evidently was a man of more 
force than Diaz, for he quelled the mutiny and kept 
on sailing eastward until he reached the shores of 
India. 



THE GREAT EXPOUNDER OiF THE 
CONSTITUTION 

Few people fully realize the wonderful service 
rendered to the people of the United States by 
Chief Justice John Marshall. He presided over the 
Supreme court from 1801 till his death, in 1835. 
During that time 1,215 cases came before the court 
for decision, and in 519 of them Marshall himself 
delivered the opinion. Of the 1,215 cases, 62 in- 
volved questions of constitutional law, and he de- 
livered the opinion in 36 of the 62. Not only so, 
but in 23 of the 36 cases there was no dissenting 
opinion by any of the associate Justices. For these 
reasons Marshall is looked upon as the great ex- 
pounder of the Constitution. His record as a judge 
and the soundness of his opinions seem all the more 
wonderful when we consider the conditions of the 
times. The Constitution, the laws, the nation itself, 
were all in their infancy. The republic was an ex- 
periment, and many doubted its survival. Without 
precedents, one might almost say without guide or 
compass, Marshall delivered opinions and interpre- 
tations that have become foundation-stones of our 
national existence. 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 189 

HUNTING A SHORT CUT TO CHINA 

Cartier was not seeking a continent, but a 
short cut to India and China. During his second 
voyage he skirted the coast of Cuba for several 
weeks in the confident belief that he was nearing 
" the City of Cathay " with all its golden treasures. 
For more than two centuries after his death naviga- 
tors sailed up and down the eastern coast of North 
America seeking a passage that would lead them 
to China. They did not realize that America was a 
vast continent in itself. Jacques Cartier, a French 
explorer, circumnavigated the Gulf of St. Lawrence 
three times, following the coast line, searching for 
a passage to the Orient. He ascended the St. 
Lawrence river as far as the present site of Quebec, 
but he little dreamed that nearly 3,000 miles of solid 
land yet lay west of him, and beyond that the 
greatest ocean on the globe. And for a hundred 
years after Cartier died his successors continued to 
search for a passage to the west in connection with 
the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 



LINCOLN'S FUNERAL TRAIN 

Magnificent was the funeral of Napoleon when 
they brought him back from St. Helena, 20 years 
after his death ; but sadder and more touching was 
that of Lincoln when they brought him back from 
Washington to the little prairie city that had been 
his home. Twelve days were consumed in the jour- 
ney. With a little variation, the route traversed 
was the reverse of that taken by the presidential 
party on its way to the Inauguration, four years h9- 



190 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

fore — Washington to Baltimore, to Harrisburg, to 
Philadelphia, to New York, to Albany, to Buffalo, 
to Cleveland, to Columbus, to Indianapolis, to Chi- 
cago, to Springfield. There were nine cars in the 
funeral train when it left Washington, though only 
two, the funeral car and the one occupied by the 
family, made the entire journey. Others were 
dropped or added as the train passed over different 
lines. The funeral cortege presented an Imposing 
spectacle as It moved from city to city, pausing at 
the larger ones to give the people an opportunity 
to see their beloved dead. Never in the history 
of the country has there been such universal sor- 
row. As one writer expressed It just after the final 
scenes, " The very sublimity of sorrow has attended 
his funeral rites, for the high and the low, the rich 
and the poor, the learned and the Ignorant, native 
and foreign born, white and black, old and young, 
have wept at his tomb." 



SLAVERY IN ILLINOIS 

Although the Ordinance of 1787 prohibited 
slavery in the Northwest Territory, a tremendous 
effort was put forth to make Illinois a slave state. 
In 1810 there were In Illinois territory 168 slaves. 
In 1820 the number had Increased to 917. Illinois 
was admitted to statehood In 1818, and the Consti- 
tution provided that " neither slavery nor Involun- 
tary servitude shall hereafter be introduced In this 
state." The pro-slavery men were determined to 
have this changed, but this could only be done by a 
convention called for the purpose. A convention 
could not be held unless a majority of the voters 
demanded it. After a bitter campaign lasting 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 191 

eighteen months the proposition to hold a conven- 
tion was defeated, August 2, 1824. The vote stood: 
For the convention, 4,972; against, 6,640. After 
that the number of slaves in the state gradually de- 
creased until in 1830 there were only 746; in 1840, 
less than 300, and in 1850 practically none. It is a 
curious fact, however, that the " Black Laws," de- 
signed to "regulate" slavery in Illinois, were not 
removed from the statute books till after the close 
of the Civil war, in 1865. 



THE DEFENSE OF GIBRALTAR 

For centuries the Rock of Gibraltar has been a 
synonym for strength. Near it in the eighth cen- 
tury landed Tarik, the first Saracen invader of 
Spain. The Moors held it till 1462, when it was 
captured by the Spaniards. Charles V. fortified it, 
but in 1704 it was taken by combined English and 
Dutch forces under Sir Edward Rooke. The Span- 
iards and French united in besieging it, but failed. 
The Spaniards tried again without success in 1727. 
It seemed impregnable, and no further attempt was 
made for more than half a century. In 1779 it was 
again closely invested, by a combined army of 
Spaniards and Frenchmen. The siege lasted three 
years, and immense preparations were made for a 
final assault in 1783. The Spaniards thirsted for 
revenge. IMany schemes of attack were proposed, 
and finally one was accepted which contemplated a 
combined attack by both land and sea, and included 
a stupendous array of floating batteries, which were 
to discharge red hot cannon balls. Thousands of 
spectators assembled to witness the fall of the strong- 



192 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

hold, but they were disappointed. For days hun- 
dreds of cannon belched forth thei'i' shot and shell, 
but the little English garrison replied with such 
spirit that the floating batteries and many of the 
attacking ships were destroyed. Gibraltar proved 
impregnable, and remains an English possession to 
this day. 



NONE BUT BRASS BUTTONS LEGAL 

A CURIOUS law was enacted by the English par- 
liament during the reign of William III., making it 
illegal for a tailor to manufacture or for an Eng- 
lishman to wear clothes with any other kind of but- 
tons than brass. This law was enacted at the be- 
hest and for the benefit of the brass button manu- 
facturers of Birmingham. It was re-enacted during 
the reign of Queen Anne, and again during that of 
George I. It provided that whoever should make or 
sell garments with any but brass buttons should pay 
a fine of forty shillings for every dozen buttons 
manufactured or worn that were not made of brass. 
At a comparatively recent date a test case was 
brought into court and a man tried for violating the 
law. Strange to say it was upheld, notwithstand- 
ing the fact that the judge, jurymen and attorneys 
were all wearing buttons not made of brass. 



THE DISCOVERY OF AFRICAN DIAMONDS 

The children of a poor farmer who lived on the 
banks of the Orange river near Hopetown, in South 
Africa, had no artificial playthings, so they were ac- 
customed to pick up and bring into the house the 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 193 

beautifully colored pebbles they found along the 
edge of the river. One day in 1867 one of the chil- 
dren found a little white stone and brought it in and 
dropped it with other pebbles on the floor. It 
sparkled so that it attracted the attention of the 
mother, who mentioned it to a man named Van 
Niekerk. The stone was found and he offered to 
pay her for it. She laughed at the idea, but he had 
a vague notion that it might be valuable. He put 
it into the hands of a traveling trader named O'Reil- 
ley, who had it examined by an expert and it was 
found to be worth $2,000. Thus was the great Kim- 
berly diamond field discovered. 



A MODEST HERO 

At one time when the cause of Italian independ- 
ence seemed to be ruined, hundreds of brave men 
who had fought for it sought refuge in the United 
States. Among them was General Garibaldi. In 
the summer of 1850 he reached New York, where he 
was solicited to " accept an ovation." He modestly 
asked to be excused, saying that to make a public 
exhibition of himself was unnecessary and would not 
help the cause; nor would the American people, he 
thought, esteem him less because he veiled his sor- 
rows in privacy. All he asked was to be allowed 
to earn his living by honest labor, and remain under 
the protection of the American flag until the time 
should come for renewing the fight for liberty which 
had been interrupted for a season. So from being a 
general in the patriot army of Italy Garibaldi be- 
came for a time a candle maker on Staten Island, 
and then resumed his old calling of mariner. 



194 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

THE INDOMITABLE SPIRIT OF WILLIAM 
OF ORANGE 

William, Prince of Orange, was a great soldier 
and one of the wisest and best rulers the earth has 
produced. He was an indefatigable Avorker, and ac- 
complished wonders. Yet his physical organization 
was frail, almost to the point of delicacy. From 
childhood he was weak and sickly. He was both 
asthmatic and consumptive. His slender frame was 
shaken by a constant hoarse cough. At one time 
he suffered severely from smallpox. He could not 
sleep unless his head was propped up by several 
pillows, and drawing his breath was frequently a 
matter of great difficulty. He was often tormented 
with cruel headaches. Exertion greatly fatigued 
him. His enemies were always hoping for and ex- 
pecting his early demise, but he had a way of dis- 
appointing them. Yet while his life was one long 
battle with disease, the force of his mind never 
failed him in emergencies. The audacity of his 
spirit carried him through in spite of physical dis- 
couragements. 



ONLY GIANTS WANTED 

King Frederick William, generally known as 
Frederick the Great, had a consuming desire to form 
a brigade of giants, and his agents ransacked not 
Europe alone, but almost every corner of the civil- 
ized world, in search of men of extraordinary size. 
Any man whose head towered above the heads of the 
multitude was not only acceptable but earnestly de- 
sired. One big Irishman, whom an agent of Freder- 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 195 

ick picked up on the streets of London, was more 
than seven feet tall. On account of his great 
stature he received a bounty amounting to more 
than $6,000, in addition to his regular pay. Such 
a soldier could not shoot any straighter or more 
rapidly than a small man, while he was much more 
likely to be hit by the balls of the enemy. Frederick 
did not succeed in realizing his ambition to form a 
large brigade of giants, but he secured quite a col- 
lection of men notable for great physical dimen- 
sions if for nothing else. 



OPENING OF THE ERIE CANAL 

It was a great day when the Erie canal was 
opened for traffic, on October 26, 1825. That was 
two years before the first railroad was built in this 
country, and the canal was the most stupendous 
public work that had yet been undertaken. The 
idea was conceived by Gouverneur Morris in 1800. 
It was strenuously advocated by a few prominent 
men, and as vigorously opposed by others. Work 
was not begun till July 4, 1817, at which time 
ground was broken at Rome, N. Y. In eight years 
it was completed, opening artificial communication 
for 428 miles, an uninterrupted passage from Lake 
Erie to tidewater in the Hudson. The opening was 
celebrated by a " telegraphic discharge of cannon, 
commencing at Lake Erie, and continued along the 
banks of the canal and of the Hudson, announcing 
to the city of New York the entrance on the bosom 
of the canal of the first barge that was to arrive 
at the commercial emporium from the American 
Mediterranean." Governor Clinton and other noted 



196 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

public men were on this barge, and their voyage 
down the canal was a triumphal procession. 



FIRST CONSUMPTION OF ANTHRACITE 
COAL 

The use of anthracite coal as fuel is of compara- 
tively recent origin. The first organized effort to 
mine it was made in 1793, but regular shipments 
were not made till 1820. The first anthracite used 
as fuel was a boatload sent from Wilkes-Barre, Pa., 
to Carlisle, for the armory there. It was not used 
as fuel in private houses till 1808, when Judge Fell 
of Philadelphia had grates built into his house and 
tried it. But it came very slowly into general use, 
and by 1820 only 365 tons had reached Philadelphia. 
It was first employed to generate steam in 1825. 
It was not used as exclusive fuel in manufacturing 
pig iron till 1839. The total production of anthra- 
cite in the United States for the year 1909 was 
more than 80,000,000 tons. The deposit in Penn- 
sylvania covers 500 square miles. 



CHICAGO'S FIRST GREAT CONVENTION 

The river and harbor bill passed by congress in 
1846 was vetoed by President Polk, chiefly on the 
ground of economy. This veto stirred up a great 
commotion all over the country, especially through- 
out the northwest ; and a " harbor and river conven- 
tion " was called to meet at Chicago in July, 1847. 
It was a great gathering, attended by several thou- 
sand delegates. Indiana alone sent 223, and Illinois 
more than 1,000. Among the delegates afterward 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 197 

prominent in national affairs were Horace Greeley, 
Thomas Corwin, Schuyler Colfax and Abraham Lin- 
coln. Strong resolutions were adopted favoring in- 
ternal improvements, especially those relating to 
transportation by water. It was the first conven- 
tion of national importance ever held at Chicago, 
and for the first time the eyes of the whole country 
were turned toward that city. Some one has said 
this convention was the starting point of Chicago's 
wonderful prosperity. The president of the con- 
vention was Edward Bates of Missouri. In his 
opening address he alluded to railroads, remarking 
that he had never yet seen one. Fourteen years later 
he traveled by rail to Washington, to become Lin- 
coln's attorney-general. 



THE CAPTURE OF ST. JOE, MICHIGAN 

At the outbreak of the Revolutionary war St. 
Joseph, Michigan, was in the hands of the British. 
It was then a mere trading-post, and they used it as 
a depot of supplies and as a rallying point for their 
Indian allies. In the autumn of 1777 Tom Brady 
and sixteen other resolute residents of Cahokia, Illi- 
nois, set out to capture the post. It was garrisoned 
by twenty-one soldiers, but they were surprised by 
night and surrendered without a fight. The victors 
gathered up the stock of provisions, clothing, etc., 
and started homeward. They were pursued by a 
party of 300 British and Indians, who overtook 
them on the banks of the Calumet river, near Chi- 
cago. A battle ensued, in which two of Brady's men 
were killed, two wounded, twelve taken prisoners and 



198 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

one escaped. Next spring a party of sixty-five Ca- 
hokians, about 200 Indians and a few Spaniards re- 
captured the post. On account of the Spaniards 
being in the party the government of Spain set up 
a ridiculous claim to that part of the country, and 
for a time St. Joe threatened to become an interna- 
tional bone of contention. 



MAKING ENGLISH CITIZENS OF 
FRENCHMEN 

Aftee the fall of Quebec, in 1759, Canada passed 
into the possession of England. It had at that time 
a resident population of perhaps 100,000. A large 
percentage of these were Frenchmen, who could not 
understand English and knew nothing of English 
laws and customs. Yet in making the transfer 
neither the French nor the English took any ac- 
count of this fact. The French king deeded 
the country to the English " in the most ample man- 
ner and form, without restriction ;" the English king 
proclaimed the country to be English, and that is all 
there was to it. There was no reservation of the 
French tenure of land. In all respects the inhabi- 
tants were to be British subjects, and to be treated 
as such. As a matter of fact this did not make much 
difference to the French Canadians, for it was hardly 
possible that their condition could be worse than 
it was already. It was an extraordinary proceeding 
— transforming a hundred thousand Frenchmen into 
English subjects by a stroke of the pen, without 
taking their welfare into account one way or the 
other. 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 199 
SKEDADDLERS FROM NEW ENGLAND 

The war of 1812 between the United States and 
Great Britain was very unpopular in New England. 
So serious was the opposition that for a time it 
threatened to break up the Union. There were sev- 
eral reasons for this. In the first place, the New 
Englanders were still chafing over the defeat of John 
Adams for a second term of the presidency, in 1800. 
Then they did not approve of the Louisiana pur- 
chase, which meant the addition of more slave terri- 
tory to the United States. And finally, they were 
bitter against the Embargo Act, which interfered 
greatly with their shipping interests. The national 
government had to resort to conscription to fill the 
quotas of soldiers required of the New England 
States. This was very distasteful to the citizens, 
and to escape the draft hundreds of them slipped 
across the line into Canada. A large percentage of 
these never returned. Many of the present inhabi- 
tants of the region lying south of the St. Lawrence 
and between the Chaudiere and Richelieu rivers are 
descendants of those New England skedaddlers from 
the draft. 



THE FIRST AMERICAN ALMANAC 

The first American almanac was published at 
Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1639. The first 
printing press was brought over that year and set 
up in Cambridge, and this almanac was the second 
thing printed on it. The author was Captain Wil- 
liam Pierce, mariner. He was a notable man in the 
colony, and made more voyages between America 



200 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

and England than any other man of his day. He 
and his good ship, the Lyon, brought over many 
notable people from England, among them Roger 
Williams. The manner of his death was tragic. In 
1641 he took a company of colonists to the West 
Indies. As his vessel approached one of the islands 
it was fired upon by some Spaniards. Captain Pierce 
and one of the colonists were killed. No copy of his 
almanac is known to be in existence. If one were 
found it would be invaluable. 



WHAT AMERICA MISSED 

It was not publicly known till almost a century 
after the close of the Revolutionary war that the 
Americans missed a grand opportunity to conquer 
England in short order and avoid a long-drawn-out 
war for independence. In 1776 Gen. John Kalb 
came over with an offer from a French count named 
Broglie to become the William of Orange of Amer- 
ica and lead the patriots to speedy victory. The 
count recommended himself most highly, and all he 
asked in return was, that he should be granted a 
large sum for expenses before embarkation, paid a 
liberal salary, given absolute command of the army, 
and granted a princely annuity for life after the 
war was over. Very soon after arriving in America, 
General Kalb saw how utterly impracticable and 
foolish the count's project was, and he had the good 
sense to say nothing about it. The count's letter 
of instructions was found among Kalb's papers long 
after his death. 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 201 
THE USE OF A VICE-PRESIDENT 

On April 4, 1841, a totally unexpected thing hap- 
pened. For the first time in the history of the 
United States a president died in office. Exactly 
one month after his inauguration William Henry 
Harrison passed away. As a consequence the vice- 
president, John Tyler, was suddenly called to the 
head of the government. It was a novel situation, 
and for a time there seems to have been some doubt 
as to whether a vice-president so promoted should be 
considered a real president. The cabinet ministers, 
in officially notifying Tyler of the death of the presi- 
dent, addressed him as vice-president. Henry Clay, 
in writing to a friend, called Tyler a mere regent. 
John Quincy Adams thought his official title should 
be, not president, but " Vice-President, acting as 
President." Tyler, however, knew what a vice-presi- 
dent is for, and settled the matter at once and for 
all by styling himself president of the United States. 



THE AUTHOR OF " HAIL, COLUMBIA " 

The popular national song, " Hail, Columbia," 
was written April 29, 1798. It was composed for 
an actor named Fox who was connected with 
a Philadelphia theater. It was not written by a 
professional song writer, nor did the author have 
in mind composing a popular national air. It was 
written by Joseph Hopkinson, then a young man, a 
son of a signer of the Declaration of Independence. 
Joseph Hopkinson afterwards served as a member 
of congress from Pennsylvania for several years. 
In 1828 he was appointed a judge of the United 



202 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

States court, and held the position until his death. 
At the time " Hail, Columbia " was written, war was 
threatened between France and the United States. 
The song at once attained great popularity, 
and did much to arouse the dormant patriotism 
of the country. Hopkinson made a good record 
in congress and on the bench, but it is as the au- 
thor of " Hail, Columbia " that he is chiefly remem- 
bered. 



CENSURING THE PRESIDENT 

It is a very rare occurrence for the senate of the 
United States to pass a vote of censure on the presi- 
dent, but such a thing was done during Andrew 
Jackson's administration. It was in the year 1834, 
and the trouble grew out of the celebrated United 
States bank and the president's relation to it. The 
resolution of censure read thus : " Resolved, That 
the president, in the late executive proceedings, in 
relation to the public revenues, has assumed upon 
himself authority and power not conferred by the 
constitution and laws, but in derogation of both." 
Jackson, as is well known, was not noted for meek- 
ness. When he learned of the passage of the resolu- 
tion he was in a towering rage. He came back at 
the senate with a message that fairly sizzled with 
wrath. He defied the members and vehemently de- 
nied the right of the senate to pass judgment on 
the executive, a co-ordinate part of the government. 
The senate was equally obdurate for a time, but 
finally, in 1837, the resolution was expunged from 
the records. 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 203 

THE SILVER GRAYS 

Millard Fillmore was not a very popular presi- 
dent. He had many admirers, but they were not 
sufficiently numerous to procure for him the nomina- 
tion for a second term. His supporters thought the 
slavery question was settled by the compromise of 
1850, a view which a very large number of people 
did not share. A convention of the president's ad- 
mirers was called to meet at Syracuse, N. Y., for the 
purpose of vindicating him and indorsing his policy. 
Evidently, however, the enemies of the administra- 
tion had packed the convention ; for when a vote was 
taken on a test question it was found they were 
greatly in the majority. Thereupon the president's 
supporters, led by the chairman, left the convention. 
As most of them were elderly, gray-haired men, 
they were called " The Silver Grays." 



LIVING V^ITHOUT FOOD 

That was a terrible experience which Lieutenant 
Greeley and his companions underwent in the frozen 
regions of the north during the winter of 1883-4. 
From November 1 to March 1 the daily allowance 
of food for each man was only 14.83 ounces of solid 
food. It will be appreciated what this meant when 
it is remembered that the daily army ration allowed 
each soldier is 46 ounces. From March 1 to May 12 
the daily allowance to each member of the Greeley 
party was reduced to ten ounces of bread and meat, 
with one to three ounces of shrimps. From May 12 
to June 22, a period of 40 days, there was no allow- 
ance, for there was no food. The only things to 



m4f CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

be had to eat were a few shrimps, reindeer moss 
and black lichen scraped from the rocks. On June 
22 a rescue party, under the command of Winfield 
S. Schley, reached the all but famished men, but only 
seven of the original twenty-five remained alive. 



OUR NAVY IN 1812 

Our navy gave a good account of itself in the 
War of 1812. This is the more remarkable because 
at the beginning of the war there were only 16 
serviceable war vessels in the United States navy. 
Some of them were not very formidable ; but three, 
the United States, the Constitution and the Presi- 
dent, were splendid 44-gun frigates, superior to any 
British ship of the same kind in American waters. 
Besides these 16 men-of-war there were 257 gun- 
boats, but they were not of much service in the war. 
On the other hand, at the opening of the war Great 
Britain had, according to the London Times, " from 
Halifax to the West Indies, seven times the arma- 
ment of the whole American navy." Two years 
later, after Napoleon and his army had been dis- 
posed of. Great Britain had 219 ships of the line 
and 226 frigates free to use against the United 
States. 



THE PARENTS OF NAPOLEON 

The books that have been written about Napoleon 
would form a good sized library ; the knowledge we 
have about his parents may be condensed into a 
paragraph. They were both of Italian descent. 
The father, Carlo Mariel Bonaparte, was born at 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 205 

Ajacio, Corsica, in 1746. He was of a noble family, 
but poor. He is described as fine looking, tall, 
manly, and above the average in intellect. He was 
ambitious, as will be seen from the fact that he 
pursued a university course at Pisa after his mar- 
riage. Napoleon's mother's maiden name was Let- 
itia Ramolino. She was beautiful, but had little 
education. She was proud and ambitious, but was 
an excellent mother, as Napoleon tells us. Carlo was 
18 and Letitia 15 at the time of their marriage. 
Thirteen children were born to them, of whom eight 
grew to maturity. The father died in 1785, when 
Napoleon was only 16. The widow outlived her 
husband half a century, dying in 1836, in her eighty- 
sixth year. Both parents undoubtedly had much to 
do with forming the ambitious character of Napo- 
leon. The father is said to have inspired his chil- 
dren with the belief that they were of rare stock, 
and might expect to rise in the world. 



A FAMINE IN NEW ENGLAND 

It is generally supposed that such a thing as a 
famine has never occurred in this country, yet there 
was a serious one in New England during the winter 
of 1816-17. The weather was intensely cold, and 
it is said there was frost every month of the year. 
The corn crop had been a complete failure, and there 
was not more than half a crop of oats, hay, po- 
tatoes, etc. Food could be procured along the sea- 
board, but the means of transportation were very 
poor in those days, and there was great suffering in 
the interior. Many of the inhabitants became dis- 
heartened, and there was a stampede for the west, 



206 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

which then meant the Ohio country, the following 
spring. Many of those who thus forsook their 
homes and started west in wagons were poorly 
equipped for the journey, and some died on the way. 
Others reached the promised land and became sturdy 
western pioneers and the ancestors of many well-to- 
do people of to-day. 



THE LEGISLATIVE " WHIP " 

It is a curious office the " whip " in the lower 
house of congress holds. It is his duty to round up 
the members of his party and see that they are pres- 
ent to vote on important questions when they come 
up. Of course he is not solicitous to secure the pres- 
ence of members of the opposition on such occasions. 
The idea of a party " whip " is borrowed from the 
English house of commons. For eight years, from 
1850 to 1858, Sir William Hayter served as the lib- 
eral " whip " in the lower house of parliament, and 
his work was so efficient and so much appreciated by 
his party that three years afterward he was pre- 
sented with a handsome testimonial. Another par- 
liamentary " whip," Rt. Hon. William Paden, was 
made governor of Madras, doubtless as a reward for 
his " whip " services. 

ORIGIN OF PUBLIC BATH HOUSES IN 
ENGLAND 

At the beginning of Queen Victoria's reign there 
were no public bath houses in England. Thirty 
thousand people were living in eight thousand cellars 
in Liverpool, none of which had drains or sewers, and 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 207 

nearly all of which were subject to inundation after 
heavy rains. In the poorer districts of London, 
and in nearly all the other cities and towns through- 
out England, the supply of water was wholly inade- 
quate to preserve the cleanliness of the laboring 
people. But steps to remedy this state of affairs 
had already been taken. In 1832, when the cholera 
broke out, Catherine Wilson, a London woman in 
moderate circumstances, was so impressed with the 
necessity of cleanliness as a preventive of disease, 
that she invited some of her poorer neighbors to 
come to her comparatively better house to wash and 
dry their clothes. The experiment was so success- 
ful, and the good results so apparent, that some 
benevolently inclined people united to help her ex- 
tend her operations. This was the beginning of the 
present extensive system of public bath houses in 
England. 



BOSTON'S FIRST SETTLER 

William Blackstone was Boston's first settler. 
He was a peculiar character, preferring solitude 
to society, and differing from the majority in his 
theological views. He came over from England 
about 1623, it is said, and built a little house on 
the peninsula. Evidently he lived there alone for 
several years, but in 1630 he was joined by other 
settlers. He did not relish the idea of being sur- 
rounded by Puritan neighbors, however, and is said 
to have told them that " he left England because 
of his dislike of the lord-bishops, and now he did not 
like the lord-brethren." So in 1634 he sold out and 
removed to a more secluded spot. He died in 1675, 



208 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

leaving some property, including a library that was 
quite large and valuable for those days. This li- 
brary was destroyed by the Indians in King Philip's 
war. It included, according to an inventory taken 
at his death, " ten paper books." These are sup-, 
posed to have been manuscripts which might have 
thrown much light on early colonial history. 



JOHN FALK, RAGGED SCHOOLMASTER 

Johannes Daniel, Falk, a native of Weimar, 
Germany, was called the Ragged Schoolmaster, not 
because he dressed in rags, but because he estab- 
lished the first institution in Germany for the care 
and education of neglected and orphan children. In 
1813 he organized, in Weimar, the Society of Friends 
in Need, and the same year he started his " ragged 
school." Both the society and the school did a good 
work, and the latter came to be an important factor 
in the educational system of the city. In 1829 the 
school was taken over by the state, and it still exists 
under the name, " Falksche Institut." Falk was a 
poor boy, without much education, though by his 
own efforts he acquired considerable learning, es- 
pecially in the languages. He was an author of 
some note, but he is chiefly remembered for his work 
as " the Ragged Schoolmaster." 



SOME LAICE CITIES IN 1846 

In the summer of 1846 William Cullen Bryant, 
one of America's great poets and for many years 
editor of the New York Evening Post, made a tour 
of the Great Lakes. His observations concerning 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 209 

some of the cities he visited are more interesting 
now, perhaps, than they were at the time they were 
published. Of Buffalo : " Buffalo continues to ex- 
tend on every side, but the late additions to the city 
do not much improve its beauty." Of Cleveland: 
" Cleveland stands in a beautiful country without a 
hill, a thriving village yet to grow into a proud city 
of the Lake country." Of Detroit : " ' You must 
lock your staterooms in the night,' said one of the 
persons employed about the vessel, ' for Detroit is 
full of thieves.' We followed the advice, slept 
soundly, and saw nothing of the thieves, nor of De- 
troit either." Of Milwaukee : " Farther on we 
came to Milwaukee, which is rapidly becoming one 
of the great cities of the west." Of Chicago: 
" Any one who had seen Chicago as I had done five 
years ago, when it contained less than 5,000 people, 
would find some difficulty in recognizing it now when 
its population is more than 15,000. It has long 
rows of warehouses and shops, its bustling streets, 
its huge steamers, and crowds of lake craft, lying 
at the wharves ; its villas embowered with trees. 
The slovenly and raw appearance of a new settle- 
ment begins in many parts to disappear." 



BOOM DAYS IN IOWA 

TiTE tide of prosperity did not set in toward 
Iowa till about 1854. For some years previous to 
that the " California fever " had raged violently, 
and all the emigration talk was of gold and silver 
and sudden riches. But when the reaction came 
people turned their attention to the rich prairies of 
the Middle West, which afforded a surer if less daz- 



210 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

zling prospect of prosperity. In one month 1,43T 
emigrant wagons passed through Peoria, 111., en 
route for new homes in the Hawkeye state. On 
every important highway these " prairie schooners " 
might be seen creeping slowly westward. In one 
day two river steamers landed more than 600 future 
lowans at St. Louis. In Davenport 300 new dwell- 
ing houses were erected in one season. New towns 
and cities sprang up in abundance, and some were 
" laid out " whose sites are now marked by waving 
fields of wheat and corn. Railroads were projected 
in all directions. The national government granted 
public lands for four roads across the state from 
east to west. But with such a tremendous flood of 
emigration the country filled up rapidly, and soon 
the advance tidal wave crossed the Missouri into a 
new Eldorado, Nebraska. 



PEGGY O'NEAL AND THE CABINET 

For many years William O'Neal kept a tavern 
in Washington, where many congressmen and sena- 
tors found board and lodging. The landlord had 
a good-looking and sprightly daughter, very lively 
in her deportment. Her name was Margaret, but 
she was always called " Peggy " O'Neal. Among 
the boarders were Major John H. Eaton and Gen. 
Andrew Jackson. Later on Peggy married a man 
named Timberlake, but in 1828 she was left a 
widow. The next year Major Eaton married her. 
When Jackson became president he made Eaton his 
secretary of war. Thereupon ensued a great hub- 
bub among the ladies, and the other cabinet wives 
refused to associate with Mrs. Eaton, because 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 211 

of her lowly origin and because of certain . ugly 
stories that had been told about her. The fiery 
president took her part and a Presbyterian minister 
led the fight against her. There was terrific firing 
all along the line on both sides, consisting chiefly 
of letters and newspaper articles. It is said that 
President Jackson's letters alone, most of them writ- 
ten by his own hand, would make about 100 pages 
of ordinary book print. The dissolution of the 
cabinet a little later on was not solely due to this 
affair, but *' Peggy " O'Neal was a contributing 
cause. 



TWO NOTABLE ANCESTORS 

Shortly after the close of the Revolutionary war 
a soldier who had won distinction for bravery at 
the battle of Bunker Hill emigrated to the west and 
took up his residence in the little frontier settlement 
of Deerfield, in what is now the state of Ohio. His 
name was Noah Grant. At the same time there was 
living in the little Deerfield settlement a man named 
Owen Brown. These two, Noah Grant and Owen 
Brown, undoubtedly knew each other and probably 
were friends. Many years afterward the son of one 
of them, John Brown, virtually opened the Civil war 
by his raid on Harper's Ferry; and a grandson of 
the other, Ulysses S. Grant, closed the war when he 
received the sword of General Lee at Appomattox. 



A SATIATED CONQUEROR 

Saladin, Sultan of Egypt, was born in 1136 and 
died in 1193. He conquered Syria, Persia, Arabia, 
Mesopotamia and many smaller provinces, and the 



212 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

fame of his exploits filled the whole known world. 
Yet in his will he directed that the shirt or tunic 
which he should be weai-ing at the time of his death 
should be carried on the end of a spear throughout 
the whole camp, and at the head of his army, and 
that the soldier who bore it should pause at inter- 
vals and cry aloud these words : 

" Behold all that remains of the Emperor Saladin ! 
Of all the states he had conquered ; of all the prov- 
inces he had subdued ; of the boundless treasures he 
had amassed; of the countless wealth he possessed, 
he retained in dying, nothing but this shroud." 



^ AN UNFORTUNATE MARRIAGE 

The Earl of Stafford followed his royal master, 
James II., when that gentleman was exiled to France. 
While in that country he succumbed to the charms 
of a certain French lady, a daughter of the Due de 
Grammont. The marriage, however, does not ap- 
pear to have been a very fortunate one for him. 
After fourteen years' endurance of her disgraceful 
conduct, he paid his respects to her and her parents 
in his will as follows : 

" To the worst of women, Claude Charlotte de 
Grammont, unfortunately my wife, guilty as she is 
of all crimes, I leave five-and-forty brass halfpence, 
which will buy a pullet for her supper. A better 
gift than her father can make her ; for I have known 
when, having not the money, neither had he the 
credit for such a purchase ; he being the worst of 
men, and his wife the worst of women, in all debauch- 
eries. Had I known their characters I had never 
married their daughter, and made myself unhappy," 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 213 

PETER PARLEY AND HIS BOOKS 

Samuel Griswold Gocxdrich was probably the 
most prolific author America has produced. He 
was the author, editor or compiler of 170 books. Of 
these, 116 were published under his nom de 
plume of Peter Parley, which came to be a very 
familiar name in almost every household in Amer- 
ica. Most of his books were intended for children 
and young people; yet they were almost as exten- 
sively read by adults. It is estimated that more than 
7,000,000 .^opies were sold. On account of the 
popularity of his books, many were published under 
the name of Peter Parley which he did not write. 
He had almost as much trouble repudiating spurious 
books as he did claiming credit for his own. He was 
born in 1793 and died in 1860. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON AS AN INVENTOR 

Thomas Jfferson was an inventor as well as a 
statesman. While traveling in Europe he was struck 
with the waste of power caused by the bad con- 
struction of the plows in common use. The mould- 
board, which throws the dirt over, appeared to him 
to be the chief source of trouble. He set to work 
to design one which should offer a minimum of re- 
sistance, and sent one of his perfected plows to the 
Royal Agricultural Society of the Seine. The 
judges were impressed with its merits, and awarded 
it a medal. Jefferson also invented the revolving 
chair, which his political enemies said facilitated his 
looking all ways at once. 



S14. CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

GEORGE CATLIN, PAINTER OF INDIANS 

The career of George Catlin, the American artist, 
is a good example of a life successfully devoted to a 
single object. He was born in Pennsylvania in 
1796. He studied law, but had a decided taste for 
art. In early life he conceived the idea of executing 
a series of Indian paintings, in order to rescue from 
oblivion and save for future generations the various 
types and customs of the American aborigines. In 
1832 he began traveling among the Indians, and for 
eight years he lived among the wild tribes of North 
and South America, studying their features, habits, 
customs, rites and ceremonies. He painted more 
than 500 portraits of Indians, from life, 470 of them 
full length. This unique and valuable collection of 
paintings is now owned by the U. S. government, 
and may be seen in the National Museum at Wash- 
ington. 



THE HARMONISTS 

Of the many communistic societies that have 
sprung up and flourished for a season, none is more 
interesting than the Harmonists. This society was 
founded in Wurtemberg, Germany. The first 
American settlement was made in Pennsylvania, 
about twenty-five miles from Pittsburg. Here the 
members built substantial dwellings, churches, mills, 
etc., and in 1805 the community numbered about 
750. After a few years they adopted celibacy and 
prohibited the use of tobacco, thereby causing some 
to withdraw. In 1814 they purchased a tract of 
30,000 acres in Posey county, Indiana, and removed 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 215 

there the next year. Ten years later they sold 
out and returned to Pennsylvania. They flourished 
for some years, and at one time their wealth was 
variously estimated at $5,000,000 to $25,000,000. 
In after years they dwindled in numbers, and in 1893 
they sold out all their holdings to a Pittsburg 
syndicate. 



IMPEACHMENTS BY CONGRESS 

Since the founding of the U. S. government 
there have been seven impeachments by congress. 
In 1797 William Blount, U. S. Senator from Tennes- 
see, was impeached for making treasonable negotia- 
tions with Great Britain for the transfer of New 
Orleans. He was acquitted for want of jurisdic- 
tion. In 1803 John Pickering, judge of the Fed- 
eral court in New Hampshire, was impeached for 
drunkenness and profanity, and removed from the 
bench. In 1804 U. S. Supreme Court Judge Samuel 
Chase was impeached for arbitrary conduct and for 
introducing politics in his legal discussions. He 
was acquitted. The same year James Peck, a Fed- 
eral judge, was impeached for punishing as con- 
tempt of court a criticism of his opinions. He was 
acquitted. In 1860 Federal Judge W. H. Hum- 
phries of Tennessee was impeached for aiding the 
rebellion and was removed from office. In 1867 
President Andrew Johnson was impeached for viola- 
ting the tenure of office act and was acquitted. In 
1876 W. W. Belknap, secretary of war, was im- 
peached for bribery in making appointments. He 
was acquitted. 



£16 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

ANDREW JACKSON'S RIDICULOUS 
PERFORMANCE 

General Jackson was a stirring character in pub- 
lic affairs long before he became president. As com- 
mander of the army in the south while negotiations 
were pending for the transfer of Florida from Spain 
to the United States he kept the president in a con- 
stant state of anxiety by his impetuous way of doing 
things. After the treaty was consummated the 
Spanish governor, Calilava, refused to turn over cer- 
tain documents until he received express orders from 
his government to do so. He appears to have been 
an unusually intelligent and conscientious man, for a 
Spanish official, and to have been warranted in the 
delay. But the fiery Jackson was not the waiting 
sort. He raged and fumed and stormed, and finally 
put the Spanish governor in the calaboose over 
night. It was a ridiculous performance, and, as a 
writer of the time said, " much ado about less than 
nothing." 



AN ERA OF GOOD FEELING 

The administrations of President Monroe, 1817- 

1823, have the distinction of being the quietest in 
the history of the country. That period was called 
" the era of good feeling." National political con- 
tests were suspended. The Democrats had a trium- 
phant majority, and the Federalist party was all 
but extinct. The war of 1812 was over, and the 
troublesome questions of the tariff and internal im- 
provements had not yet arisen. The term " era 
of good feeling " was first used by the Boston 



CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 217 

Sentinel, on the occasion of a visit of the presi- 
dent to that city, in 1817. When Monroe retired 
from the presidency he received tokens of admira- 
tion from all parties. John Adams said his ad- 
ministration had been, so far as he knew, without 
fault ; and chief Justice Marshall wrote, " The 
retrospect is not darkened by a single spot." 



CABEZA DE VACA'S EVENTFUL LIFE 

Cabeza de Vaca, a Spaniard of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, had enough excitement crowded into his sev- 
enty years of life to satisfy a dozen ordinary men. 
In 1528, while quite a young man, he went with an 
exploring party to Florida. The expedition was 
shipwrecked, and he and three companions were all 
that escaped death. They lived among the Indians 
for some years, and Cabeza became a " medicine 
man." In 1536 they reached the Spanish settle- 
ments in northern Mexico, and next year he returned 
to Spain. In 1540 he was appointed governor of 
Paraguay. Four years later he was impeached for 
arbitrary actions as governor, and thrown into 
prison. Then he was sent back to Spain, tried, con- 
victed and banished to Africa. He was subse- 
quently recalled, pensioned, and made a judge of the 
Supreme Court of Seville. 



EARLY NAMES OF LAKES AND RIVERS 

Some of the American lakes and rivers would 
hardly be recognized now if called by the names 
given them by early French travelers. Lake On- 
tarioj for instance, was called Lake Frontenac. 



218 CURIOUS BITS OF HISTORY 

Lake Huron was called Karegnondi ; also Lake of 
Orleans. The name of Lake Erie was not so differ- 
ent from its present form: Erike, or Erige. It 
was also called Lake Conti. Lake Michigan had va- 
rious names: Lake of Puans, Lake of the Illinois, 
Lake of the Illinese, Lake of the Illinouacks, Mis- 
chignong, and Lake of the Dauphin. Lake Su- 
perior was called Lake of Conde, and Green Bay, 
Bale des Puans. The Ohio river figured as Ouabous- 
kigou, Ouabachi, Oyo, and Belle river. The Missis- 
sippi was called the river of St. Louis, the river Col- 
bert, Meschasipi, etc. Of course after the English 
took possession of the country these French names 
were discarded, but in some cases the English sub- 
stitutes are not as pretty as their predecessors. 



THE END 



INDEX 



INDEX 

Abd-el-Kader, 133. Black Hawk war, eminent 
Actors, remarkable family of, men in, 50. 

109. Blake, Admiral, 148. 

Adams, John, played hookey, Blanket procession, a, 63. 

67; a poor loser, 68. Blood, Col., crown stealer, 75. 

Adams, John Quincy, 67. Book, first printed in America, 
Adams, Samuel, 34. 92; a costly, 184. 

Admiral, a conscientious, 53; Boone, Daniel, last days of, 41. 

the first American, 130; Boston, first fire, 100; regulates 

who died poor, 148. wages, 169; first settler. 

Agitator, the first English, 107. 207. 

Airline railroad, the Czar's, Boyd, Belle, thrilling career, 

149. 129. 

Alabama claims, 47. Bravest Englishman, the, 185. 

Albanians, the, 18. Bright's disease, 43. 

Albino king of England, 14. Broglie's plan to conquer Eng- 
Alcuin the schoolmaster, 169. land, 200. 

Alesia, battle of, 16. Brother Jonathan, 177. 

Almanac, the first American, Brown, John, son's burial, 26; 

199. ancestor, 211. 

America vs. Columbia, 96. Bruce, Robert, dying request, 
American independence, birth 110. 

of, 44. Bryant, W. C, and the em- 
Amureth II. could not con- bargo, 26; letter of, 208. 

quer Albanians, 18. Buttons, only brass ones legal, 
Amykla, lost through silence, 192. 

89. Byng, Admiral, tragic fate of, 
Animals, punishment of, 20. 73. 

Anjou, Duke of, thrown out of 

Antwerp, 59. Cabeza de Vaca, 217. 

Argall, Samuel, navigator, 148. Callender, Charles, 29. 

Arnold, Benedict, 178. Carrier, Jean Baptiste, 24. 

Arctic ship's return, 80. Carroll of Carrollton, 90. 

Augustina, checked Napoleon, Catherine of Brunswick, 186. 

135. Cat hoax, 13. 

Catlin, George, 214. 

Bachelors ruled out, 162. Cavendish, Sir William, 94. 

Ball, John, 114. Charles II, 15; the Simple, 18; 
Baltimore, queer doings at, VI of France, 60. 

130. Charlemange, 87. 

Bank of England, troubles of, Chicago's first convention, 196. 

161. Child labor in coal mines, 131. 

Barbarosa, Frederick, 87. Chinese women in war, 66. 

Barnburners, 84. Cholera in U. S. army, 39. 

Baths, Roman, 24. City of Short Bread, 168. 

Bath houses, origin of, 206. Cockburn, Sir Alexander, 47. 

Battleship, a terrible, 113. Coal, anthracite, first used. 
Beer but no tobacco, 124. 196. 

Beggar who became a general. College, first American, 103. 

32. Colored paper first made, 174. 

Bishop, a stingy, 21. Columbus, the man behind. 
Bishop of Ely, 27. 142. 

Black Hawk's cure for slavery. Congress on wheels, 85. 

30. Constitution, making the, 103. 



222 



INDEX 



Cradle of liberty, 132. 
Crazy European rulers, 126. 
Crescent conquered by th© 

cross, 108. 
Cromwell, Oliver, 5; Richard, 

74. 
Crownstealer, a, 75. 
Cruelty, the father of, 21. 
Culloden, battle of, 68. 

Daily papers, first, 22. 
Dare, Virgrinia, 97. 
Dark horse, the first, 68. 
Dartmoor massacre, 83. 
Debt, imprisonment for, 166. 
Declaration of Independence, 

last surviving signer, 90. 
Desoto in battle, 138. 
Diamonds, African, discovery 

of, 192. 
Diggers, the, 105. 
Discovery of America, cost of, 

81. 
Dockwra, William, 157. 
Dodd, Doctor, 167. 
Ducking for vs^omen, 31. 
Dying request of two kings, 

110. 

Earthquake in Mississippi 

Valley, 86. 
Edward the Confessor, 14. 
Edward I, wedding gifts, 54; 

dying request, 110. 
Elmbargo act, 25. 
English sympathy for America, 

145. 
Era of good feeling, 216. 
Erie Canal, opening of, 195. 
Escorial, the, 171. 
Explorers, a band of plucky, 

139. 
Extremes of fortune, 154. 

Falk, John, 208. 

Faneuil Hall, 132. 

Fashions, old-time, 176. 

Field, Cyrus, 151. 

Fillmore, Millard, and Know 
Nothing partv, 23; and 
Silver Grays, 203. 

Fifth monarchy men, 147. 

Fitch, John, 125. 

Fisher, Marv, 152. 

Fitzosbert, William, 108. 

Fleet captured by cavalry, 184. 

Flies and American Independ- 
ence. 88. 

Flying shuttle invented, 171. 

Fools, order of, 52. 

Fortune in a face, 159. 

Fourier and his folly, 58. 



Francis, Joseph, life saver, 
127. 

Franklin, Benjamin, got the 
money, 82; sarcasm of, 134. 

Franklin, State of, 48. 

Frederick II. of Germany, 181. 

French in American Revolu- 
tion, 179. 

French Revolution, horrors of, 
24. 

Galen and his medical system, 
95. 

Garibaldi, surprised, 170; 
modesty of, 193. 

George II, 161. 

George III, confession of de- 
feat, 19; manly speech, 
123. 

Giants wanted, 194. 

Gibraltar, defense of, 191. 

Goat, travels of a, 79. 

Gold, discovery of in Cali- 
fornia, 156; room full of, 
116. 

Good Hope, Cape, discovered 
by accident, 187. 

Grant's ancestor, 211. 

Greely's expedition, 203. 

Grenville, Sir Richard. 134. 

Guy's Hospital, founding of, 
71. 

Habeas corpus act, 51. 
Hail Columbia, author of, 201. 
Harmonists, the, 214. 
Heming, Edward, and street 

lighting, 155. 
Henry II, rough and ready 

monarch, 49. 
Henry IV and the lawyers, 73. 
Henry, Prince of Portugal, 

142. 
Henry, Patrick, and slavery, 

120. 
Hessians, the, 180. 
Hideyoshi, the beggar-general, 

32. 
Hopkins, Esek. first American 

admiral, 130. 
Hull. Gen. William, 164. 
Hungarian hero, a, 143. 
Hunger, a city conquered by, 

183. 
Hunkers, the, 84. 

Illinoisans called Suckers, 100. 
Impeachments by congress, 

215. 
Imprisonment for debt, 166. 
Indian military tactics, 45. 



INDEX 223 

Inhumanity of Roman em- Lincoln, Abraham, answer to 

peror, 182. Seward, 78; first visit to 

Inventor, a flre-flghting, 118. Chicago, 119; Roman trlb- 

lowa, boom days in, 209. ute to, 127; journey to 

Ireland, slit-noses in, 20. Washington, 143; funeral 

procession, 189. 
Lofting-, John, 118. 

Jackson, Andrew, Kitchen Londoners and darkness, 

cabinet, 57; ridiculous per- 155. 

formance of, 216. Lord Kingsborough's costly 
Jailbirds, dumping ground for, book, 184. 

141. Lover, a strenuous, 13. 
Jefferson, Thomas, unconsti- 
tutional bargain, 153; Maid of Saragossa, 135. 

mountain of salt, 173; an Maroons, the, 186. 

inventor, 213. Marshall, Chief Justice, 188. 

Jews, banished from England, Mauville, battle of, 138. 

54. Minnesota regiment at Gettys- 
John of Cappadocia. 154. burg, 77. 

Johnson, Andrew, 67. Mobile, Insurrection at, 76. 

Joseph II of Germany, 69. Money, the first coined for 
Juana, the mad queen, 58. America, 98. 

Julius Caesar and Vercenge- Monroe's administration, 217. 

torix, 16. Muhlenberg, John P. G., mili- 
tant preacher, 137. 
Murdock, William, lathe In- 
Kamehameha, King, 28. ventor, 173. 

Kay, John, 171. 

Kegs, battle of the, 62. Napoleon and Wellington, 32; 
Kembles, the, 109. son of, 38; second fu- 

Kempf, Rear Admiral, 53. neral, 51; and Lafayette, 

Kent, Crazy preacher of, 158; opinion of Washing- 

114. ton, 166; return from Elba, 

Kentuckians at New Orleans, 175; parents of. 205. 

111. Napoleonic colony in Alabama, 
Kingdom in Lake Michigan, 136. 

84. National road, the old, 92. 

Know Nothing party, the, 23. Naval victory without blood- 
shed, 139. 

Lafayette, five years in prison, New England: slavery in, 35; 

158. Skedaddlers from, 199; 

Lake cities In 1846, 208. famine in, 205. 

Lakes and rivers, early names New Orleans, battle of. 111. 

of, 217. Newspapers: in Revolutionary 
Land owner judge and jury, war, 34; first in America, 

145. 106. 

La Rochelle, conquered by Nose tax in Ireland, 20. 

hunger, 183. 

Last battle on British soil, 68. O'Brien, Jeremiah, doughty 
Lathes, oval, 173. sea captain, 140. 

Lawyer, America's first, 144. Old Capitol huilding, the, 125. 

Lawyer, severe punishment Omnibuses, the first, 42. 

for. 167. O'Neal, Peggy, and the cabi- 
Legislative assembly, first in net, 210. 

America. 150. Otis, James, his great speech, 
Letchford, Thomas, 144. 44. 

Levelers, the, 54. Otto III. and his dream, 91. 
Liberty, 132. 

Life guards, Washington's, Parliament of dunces, 73. 

100. Pasquale de Paoli, 110. 

Life saving apparatus, 127. Peacock throne, the, 22. 

Lighting London streets, 155. Peter Parley, 213. 



2U INDEX 

Petticoat insurrection, a, 76. Slavery: Black Hawk's solu- 

Petty crimes, 165. tion for, 30; in New Eng- 

Pig, an international, 160. land, 35; Wilberforce's 

Pike, General, tragic death of, fight on, 64; Patrick 

Pillar saints, the, 70. Henry's relation to, 120; 

Pillory, the 37. in Illinois, 190. 

Pins and Pin money, 65. Sleeping car, origin of, 122. 

Polk, James K., first dark Soap rebellion, a, 146. 

horse, 63. Spanish kings, burial place o^ 

Postage: rates in 1S24; cheap, 171. 

155. Star chamber court, 185. 
Preacher, a fighting, 137. Steamship, first to cross tha 
Presidents who played hookey, ocean, 55. 

67. St. Joe, Michigan, capture of, 

Punishments, old-time, 40. 197. 

Puritans, no use for paint, 99. Strang, James Jesse, king of 

Beaver Island, 84. 

Queen, a mad, 58. Stumble, a fortunate, 60. 
Queen Dick, 74. 

Queer little English king, a. Temperance, Father Mathew'a 

161. work for, 81. 

Thelussen, Peter, curious 

Ragged schools of England, will of, 76. 

172. Tomb, the finest in the world. 
Railroads, first in U. S., 33; 141. 

wildcat, 128; first in Ger- Treadmill, an instrument of 

many. punishment, 176. 

Regicides, in America, 56. Treason, rewards of, 178. 

Revere, Paul, and his work, Tyler, John, kaleidoscopic ad- 

36. ministration of, 115. 

Revolution, father of the, 34. Tyler. Wat, liberty martyr, 

Revolutionary war, newspa- 106. 

pers during, 34; finances 

of, 82; French in, 179. Umbrella, first used in Eng- 

Riding the stang, 61. land, 17. 
Roosevelt, another strenuous, 

65. Vercengetorix, dragged in 

chains by Csesar, 16. 

Salt, Jefferson's mountain of, Villiers, George, and his hand- 

173. some face, 159. 
Sandwiches, origin of. 71. 

Saragossa, Maid of, 135. 

Scanderbeg, an Albanian hero, Warren, General, great speech 

18. of, 171. 

Scolding women, punishment Washington, boom times at, 

of, 31. 101. 

Scott, Gen., and the cholera, Washington, General; honor of, 

38. 28; life guard, 100; criti- 

Seven-days* king, a, 72. cism of, 102; wedding of, 

Seward, W. H., and Lincoln, 114; first monumment of, 

78. ■ 123; anger of, 154; wealth 

Shays, Daniel, and his rebel- of, 164; Napoleon's opinion 

lion, 16. of, 166. 

Short bread, city of, 168. Watercure movement, 39. 

Siberia conquered by Russia, Webster, Daniel, unfortunate 

156. speech of, 93. 

Silence, city lost through, 89. Wellington, Duke of, and 

Silver Grays, the, 203. Napoleon, 32; explanation 

Skedaddlers from New Eng- of Waterloo. 

land, 199. Whitney, Eli, troubles of, 149. 



D^c y- 



INDEX 



225 



Wilberforce and his fight on 
slavery, 64. 

Whip, the legislative, 206. 

Will, Peter Thelussen's 

strange, 76. 

William of Orange, indomitable 
spirit of, 194. 

William of Normandy, court- 
ship of, 13. 



Women of Weinsberg, 89. 
Wotton, Sir Henry, too witty, 
95. 

Yankee Doodle, origin of, 116. 



Zrinyi, Miklos, 
hero, 143. 



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